


The Episodic Coitus Contrivance

by April in Paris (April_in_Paris)



Category: Shamy - Fandom, The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, shamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 52,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/April_in_Paris/pseuds/April%20in%20Paris
Summary: There's the Shamy we see on our television screens and then there is the Shamy we all know exists. What if Sheldon and Amy have a happy, healthy intimate life off camera? How would the events of each episode lead to the bedroom? And what would happen there?A one-shot for every episode of Season 10. Spoiler free.Published simultaneously on fanfiction.net.





	1. Episode One: The Conjugal Conjecture

_Bump. Thump. Bump. THUMP!_

"Almost there," Amy said.

Grunting, Sheldon pulled the harp case along behind him, its two tiny wheels useless on the pale carpet of the hallway. He paused, catching his breath, as she unlocked her door and then resumed the heavy work of dragging her instrument into her apartment.

"Thank you for helping me with my harp," his girlfriend said, still wearing her new fancy dress.

"Would it have killed you to learn to play the flute instead?" he asked, standing and looking over at her. If only she didn't look so pretty in the pale purple frock.

"My mother wouldn't let me learn any woodwind instrument. She said it wasn't ladylike to blow. I still have scars in my mouth from all the hot soup I wasn't allowed to cool."

"Really? I never noticed."

Amy just gave a slight shake to her head and looked away. What did she mean? It was true; he was familiar with the interior reaches of Amy's oral cavity, and he'd never noticed anything untoward while, um, examining it. He only discovered pleasant things in those moments, like how thorough her dental hygiene was and how the feel of her tongue on his made unconnected parts of his body twitch.

Reaching for her cheek, Sheldon bent down and softly kissed her. Amy didn't fight it but she didn't deepen it, either, and it was she who pulled away.

"You look beautiful," Sheldon offered, wondering exactly what he was doing wrong here. Because he had the distinct impression he was doing something wrong.

At the restaurant after the wedding, while Amy had been somewhere being photographed, Sheldon found his delicate hearing assaulted by the conversation being had by a group of woman at the next table. They seemed to be inebriated, as they were having what he deemed an inappropriate conversion about their sex lives at a loud volume. And then one of the woman said, "God, what I wouldn't give for some surprise sex! Rodger only wants it at bedtime. We haven't had a nooner in ages! You think he'd realize how hot it is not to plan."

Even after he'd selectively turned off his hearing to avoid more details about this stranger's intimate habits, Sheldon kept thinking about that comment. Although he had no idea what a nooner was, was the rest of this overly-loud and over-sharing woman's statement correct? While he still found his physical encounters with Amy very pleasing - each one remained more pleasing than he imagined they could be - he had to admit they were never a surprise. An invitation to "stay the night" was issued and discussed in advance so that Sheldon could bring a change of clothes, it always happened at Amy's, and still Sheldon waited in the bedroom for her to enter in either a nightgown or, lately, just her robe which she would remove before she climbed in next to him. He'd yet to see Amy remove her everyday clothes. Or assist her in just such a task. Which, especially tonight in her fancy lavender dress, he wanted to try. He wondered what the lace would feel like sliding under his palms, how it would fall and puddle around her ankles . . .

All of this ruminating taking only a couple of seconds, Sheldon leaned forward again to plant another kiss, this time resting his palm on her shoulder, right where he could slide the sleeve of her little cardigan down if the woman at the restaurant was correct and Amy would, in fact, find this unplanned attempt at . . . He struggled for a word and had to admit that it was seduction. Very well, if Amy found his seduction at unexpected times appealing and -

But his girlfriend's hand was on his chest, pushing him gently. "Not tonight."

"Oh." He stood sharply, angry and confused that he had misread the situation. This is exactly why he didn't seduce! "I'm sorry. You must be exhausted from your musical duties."

"No, it's not that."

Was there something off-putting about his own oral hygiene? Had the green icing used for the leaves on the cake turned his teeth green, too? Asking if he could go brush his teeth using his sleepover toothbrush seemed like it would kill the surprise element for which he was aiming.

Amy turned slightly and looked away. Sheldon frowned.

"Well, good-bye then."

"Yes, good-bye." She nodded softly. "Thank you again for bringing up my harp."

His frown deepening when she didn't even offer a ride home, Sheldon turned and left, closing the door behind him. Stepping out into the warm air, he took a deep breath and started the walk toward the bus stop. Maybe walking was good, it would help him think. And, yet, by the time he reached his own building he'd only decided on two things: 1) he'd definitely done something wrong, and 2) he had no idea what.

* * *

Amy had decided two things that evening: 1) she had probably overreacted in her disappointment and should apologize, and 2) she was entitled to have any emotional response to the disappointing stimuli that her brain produced and no apology was necessary. That these two decisions were contradictory was not lost on her.

The days before the wedding had been such a busy rush that Amy hadn't really had time to just sit down and be alone with Sheldon. She decided to rectify that situation the next day, after his mother left. Plus, now she had something to talk to him about. Clearing the air would be good; she didn't even have to air her grievances, just maneuver the conversation toward the topic and let Sheldon say something explanatory, so that she could determine if she really needed to apologize or not.

But the brief exchange in the car on the way to the airport the next morning had only deepened her disappointment. It was different and yet not. After good-byes had been exchanged with Mary, she and Sheldon rode back in silence. That was, she admitted, one of Sheldon's better qualities. If you wanted to be silent with your thoughts, he was more than happy to be alone with his. She should have been concentrating on all the other good qualities her boyfriend possessed. After all, she really did love him, quirks and all.

Yet the whole situation still rankled. Yes, she was willing to admit she'd overreacted in the moment and thus made a fool of herself. There was no one else to blame for that. Fortunately, only Mary had seemed to notice. But the whole situation was so patently absurd that it boggled her mind how to process it. A married couple paying two leases (or at least one and half) and spending part of their time on one side of the hallway and the other half in the apartment opposite? If it had just been a situation unique to only Leonard and Penny, it might have been one thing; still odd, but it was only their business. But why couldn't Sheldon man up and live alone? He wouldn't really be alone. His apartment would most likely remain the central meeting point, Leonard and Penny would be mere feet away, and she could and would visit more, as often as he wanted her to. Honestly, if she were a professional writer and producing this charade as an ongoing plot line, wouldn't the audience and critics scoff at the unreality and incredulity of it all?

All the wedding had done, though, was reinforce how unnecessarily dependent Sheldon was upon Leonard and Penny. It wasn't that Amy wanted him to be dependent on her instead - well, of course she did, when it really mattered, like when he was ill or in an emergency situation - it was that she wanted Sheldon to be the independent man she knew he could be full-time. It had not taken her long to learn that if she treated Sheldon like an adult, he would rise to her expectations. Treating him like a child only perpetuated the cycle of immaturity. Look at his relationship with his MeeMaw. Or, to a lesser extent, his mother. And, the crux of the matter, with Leonard and Penny.

Before she even realized it, she had sighed heavily on the stairs, having fallen behind Sheldon's long frame. He paused and turned. "Do you not feel well? You don't have to come up for tea."

"No, I'm fine." She forced a smile. "Tea would be lovely."

He nodded and they resumed their climb, entering his apartment in equal silence. Leonard and Penny had left, dropping their respective families off at the airport before heading to San Francisco to finally use the trip Sheldon had bought them months ago as a honeymoon. Surprisingly, Sheldon had only mildly grumbled when they insisted that he wasn't allowed to join them. See, that just proved her point, didn't it? It had been almost a whole two hours without them in the same city, and Sheldon was still in one adult piece.

The kettle was filled and put on, the tea caddy brought out, mugs taken out of the cabinet, and she and Sheldon bent over the box to make their selections. "Chamomile, please," Amy said.

Sheldon looked up. "Chamomile? Are you sure you're not coming down with something?"

"I'm sure." She took a breath and decided to risk it. "But I do want something soothing."

"Are you experiencing stress about something? Are things not proceeding as expected in your current study?" His eyebrows went higher. Amy felt a tinge of guilt because it was obvious he was concerned about her.

"Work is fine, the study is going as I expected."

She saw it then, the little frown he tried to hide when he was confused by something. He turned too quickly toward the now whistling kettle to cover it, she knew. Tea was prepared and, surprising her, Sheldon picked up both their mugs and headed toward the sofa. She thought they'd sit at the island, and now she realized would have liked the physical distance between them. Sheldon's physical presence sometimes overwhelmed her, usually only in the best possible way with his manly body and the memories of how he moved it. It had taken all of her strength to resist his advances yesterday, especially because he'd never initiated unplanned intimacy before. But she hadn't wanted to let it go too far, to find herself making love to him, enjoying his body even while her heart remained hurt by his behavior. That would only lead to regrets.

"Sheldon -" "Amy-"

They looked at each other and smiled. "You first," Amy volunteered. Goodness knew she wasn't eager to talk.

"Very well. I think I owe you an apology." He quickly hid his face in his mug.

Amy's eyebrows went up. She hadn't expected that. Had the absence of his keepers for less than a day resulted in exactly the sort of self-realization she'd been hoping for? And solved her problem of contradictory decisions? That was much faster than she'd ever hoped. "Oh?"

"I should not have attempted to . . . seduce you last night. I realize it violates the spirit of our relationship, if not the law."

"Oh." Amy nodded. Now she was in a bigger pickle. She actually loved the idea of Sheldon seducing her. Heck, she loved the idea of her seducing him. It's why she'd never mentioned any update to the Relationship Agreement once they became intimate. She didn't want any laws, she wanted only spirit. Lots of spirited love-making. "You don't have to apologize for that. I - there are times I would welcome seduction."

The little frown blipped across his face. "But not last night?"

"No, not last night," she agreed softly, taking a drink of her tea.

"How am I know when seduction is welcome and when it is not? Are there guidelines I should follow?"

Unable to stop the small smile, Amy took another drink. Sheldon needed the laws. "There a few obvious times it would be unwelcome, I think. If I'm ill, for example. But mostly I think it's trial and error." She shrugged.

"Hmmmm." Sheldon took a drink. "For future reference, is it allowable for me to ask why seduction is not welcome at the time?"

Amy tilted her head. "Yes. But I think you have to accept that sometimes I just might not be in the mood. Just as you are not constantly in the mood to be intimate."

He gave what seemed to Amy to be a thoughtful nod. "Is this allowance retroactive? May I inquire about last night?"

"Oh." Amy swallowed a mouthful of air. Well, better out than in, right? "I wasn't in the mood because I was disappointed."

"Disappointed?" Shifting in his spot, Sheldon turned toward her. "Could you be more specific? There were several things about the wedding ceremony and the following festivities I found disappointing."

Putting her mug down on the coffee table, Amy angled toward him, mirroring his actions. "Fine. I was disappointed in you -"

"Me? I hauled your harp up all those stairs for you!"

"- specifically your behavior at the wedding, when you ran to the front of the ceremony."

This time he didn't try to hide his frown. After a moment of silence, he said, "But I thought I was just sharing my joy with Leonard and Penny. Getting in touch with all my mushy feelings. You normally love that."

It was Amy's turn to frown. "When your feelings are positive, of course. But I don't think one should air all of one's feeling out in the public like dirty laundry." She sighed and looked down at her skirt. "Sheldon, it hurt me that you felt that both Leonard and Penny are the most special to you. I want to be the most special person to you. I think I  _ought_  to be the most special person to you." There, she'd said it.

"Amy," Sheldon leaned closer, "how could you think that? And I didn't say  _most_ special; I just said special. Leonard is my best friend, my roommate, and possibly my future step-brother. And Penny is now my possible sister-in-law. It's like family. My mother and MeeMaw are very special to me, too."

"I know." Amy shook her head. "I'm not saying you can't have other notable people in your life, especially family. I understand and want your family to be special to you. That's how it should be."

"Then I don't understand."

Now she felt hot and foolish, just the way she had felt during that embarrassing time when Mary was patting her shoulder during the ceremony yesterday. "I'm sorry, Sheldon, it just hurt me in the moment. I want a public declaration of how much you love me, I guess."

"Don't you enjoy our private declarations?" Sheldon had this voice he used when he was hurt, just a slightly different pitch than his usual, deeper and quieter, and Amy heard it in those words.

"Of course I do!" Amy put her hand on his arm to try and impress upon him how much she meant what she said. This was going all wrong. Sheldon thought she was unhappy about the wrong thing. Or, perhaps, a different thing.

It only got worse when Sheldon turned away and seem absorbed in his cup of tea, taking several slow drinks, staring down into the dark liquid in between. Picking back up her mug, Amy took several swallows of her own tea and tried to find a way to start the conversation again, to steer it around to what she wanted to say, although finding the exact words was proving to be much more difficult than she'd imagined.

"It suddenly occurred to me, during the wedding, how much I'd miss Leonard," Sheldon finally said.

Her head snapping toward him, Amy said, "Miss him?"

"When he moves out."

"He's - he's moving out?"

"Not yet." Sheldon shook his head. "But he has to in order for you to move in."

"What?" Despite all the liquid she'd just consumed, Amy's throat was suddenly dry.

Sheldon finally turned back toward her. "I don't know how yet, Amy. I don't have a plan yet. Leonard is a very delicate man, you know, he gets hysterical and breaks easily. I just want you to know that I'm considering it. I know it has to happen sometime."

"Oh." Amy took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay." She tried to process this new information. It was good that Sheldon realized Leonard would be moving out sometime, yes? But how long was sometime? And why did he say "has to"? It was the sting that took the joy out of his admission that he saw Amy moving in. She buried her face in her mug, tipping it up to drink the last of her tea while she considered further.

"I misspoke. I  _want_  it to happen sometime, your moving in," Sheldon said softly.

"Phffllippppp!" Amy choked on her tea, coughing and almost spewing the warm liquid. Then she almost spit it out again when Sheldon's strong hand struck the middle of her back. And again. "Stop it." Cough. "I'm fine."

The slapping stopped. "Since you are both coughing forcefully and now speaking, I am convinced the Heimlich maneuver won't be needed. Are you all right?"

One more cough, and Amy nodded, smiling over at him. "Yes. I'm better than all right."

"The coughing forcefully says otherwise."

"It just went down the trachea. And . . . you mean it?"

"Of course. But it's just as I said. We have to come up with some sort of plausible excuse for poor Leonard, ease him into the idea that I'll be spending the rest of my life with you, not him. It's bound to rock his world."

"We're the two greatest minds of our generation, surely we'll snatch up the chance as soon as we come up with something," Amy said.

"I'm sure." Sheldon nodded. He leaned forward and plucked Amy's now empty mug from her hand and set it along with his on the coffee table in front of them.

Amy watched his movements, strong and sure and precise. And his hands! What was it about his hands, those long fingers . . . As Sheldon rotated back up, Amy leaned over to catch his chin and turn it toward her.

"Yes?" he asked, one eye brow raised.  _Hooooo,_  that eyebrow.

"Kiss me," she whispered in what she hoped was a seductive tone.

Leaning in, Sheldon planted a sweet and chaste kiss on her lips. "Okay. May I ask why?" he said, pulling back.

"Because I love you. And I love your silent private declarations. I want to spent the rest of my life with you, too."

"I love you, too," he said softly. "Or was that supposed to be silent?"

This time, nothing was asked for or questioned, he just came forward and kissed her again, longer, his lips quivering slightly over hers.

"Make love to me," Amy said when they took a deep breath, hoping that her forward suggestion wouldn't shock him. After all, there had never been unplanned intimacy before, although she was still fairly certain he was trying to initiate it the evening prior.

"Amy Farrah Fowler, are you trying to seduce me?" he asked, although she thought perhaps she saw the hint of smile around his eyes.

"You betcha!" She stood then and put her hand out.

Sheldon shrugged before getting up to take it and follow her to his bedroom.

* * *

For a man who spent his entire life quantifying and tabulating, Sheldon was at loss to explain what his favorite part was. There were those seconds at the beginning, when it all began, in which his heart beat so quickly that he feared he was being haunted by his father's history of cardiovascular disease. There was the first time of every time that his hand brushed through her long tresses. There was the shy giggle she still gave when her fingertips skirted down the trail of hair beneath his belly button. There was the sight of her face, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open and such a deep pink when he brought her to climax. There was the moment of overwhelming gratefulness when Amy gave him the same gift back again. Most of all, there was the moment when their bodies joined and everything felt complete and true.

Resting his head back and looking up at his ceiling, Sheldon smiled as he ran his hands though Amy's hair, her hot breath still panting softly into the crook of his neck. He lowered his other hand and softly cupped her bare bottom. This was another of his favorites: when she flopped down upon his chest, still heaving, and he listened to the sound of their exhales, each one now longer and slower, the ramping down as opposed to the ramping up, but still in unison.

Today, there had been new favorites: the anticipation of unbuttoning her cardigan, the joy of slowly lowering her blouse down her pale arms, the rustle and puddling of her skirt at her ankles (just as he knew it would be!), her amused smile when he struggled with her bra clasp for the very first time, the satisfying tiny pop it gave when he succeeded -

Just then he heard the chimes from the City Hall tower and each of the twelve strikes sounded through his brain. "Amy, is what we just engaged in colloquially known as a nooner?"

"Mmmm mmmmm," she breathed on his skin, giving a tiny nod into his neck, her voice deep and foggy. He knew she was fighting sleep despite the hour, just as he was. It wouldn't be long until she would roll off of him. That was decidedly not one his favorites; even though he knew they couldn't sleep with one of them suffocating the other, it was the ultimate signal that their physical pleasure had reached the end. Although then it was replaced by the emotional pleasure of holding her close while they slept, and that was one of his favorites, too.

"Impromptu coitus in the middle of the day," he murmured. "Huh, I think seduction may be my new favorite."

To be continued . . .

* * *

_**This story is a huge departure in writing process for me, as I'm usually very regimented in terms of outlining, story arcing, theme building, foreshadowing, etc. But I'm willing to give this fly-by-night thing a try if you're willing to understand its limits.** _

_**Some disclaimers before we continue:** _

  * _**Not every chapter will be a heavy M-rating. Some will be lightly M, like this one.**  _
  * _**Some chapters may be painfully short. Because (here's hoping) the show leaves us with the already eager clothes-throwing-kissing-while-kicking-off-their-shoes-and-running-to-the-bedroom Shamy.**  _
  * _**Some chapters are going to be contrived and implausible, I'm sure. It's right there in the title.**  _
  * _**I have no doubt that some things I write will be disproven by an episode the following month or in the spring.**  _
  * _**I'm going to try and get each chapter up within the week and before the next episode, but I'm sure I'll be late at some point.**_



_**If you're** _ **_interested, I'm now on Instagram (handle: aprilinparisfanfic) to share story teasers and other general writing & Shamy nerdiness._ **

**_As always, most importantly, thank you in advance for your reviews!_ **


	2. Episode Two: The Military Miniaturization

**NOTE: These events occur before the tag scene, not after the episode is complete.**

* * *

"Oh, good!, you're finally here!" Sheldon was almost panting when he opened the door, his voice the same panicked quality it had on the phone.

"I came as quickly as I could. You said it was an emergency," Amy replied, stepping into 4A as he shut the door behind her. She had just put on her nightgown and sat down with a bowl of ice cream to watch  _Antiques Roadshow_  when Sheldon called, demanding that she drop everything and come over immediately. Emergency phone calls were not as rare as one might expect from her boyfriend, but given the horrible day he'd had - they'd already discussed it during another phone call earlier in the afternoon - Amy was more alarmed than usual. Had the other guys kicked him off the project for his behavior during the meeting? Had the Air Force reneged on their offer of funding?

"Oh, Amy it's awful! It's so large it feels like a ping pong ball between my spine and my shoulder blade!" Sheldon reached his left arm around to touch the back of his right shoulder.

"Huh? What?"

Releasing his arm, Sheldon said, "I need a massage."

"You called me at eight o'clock on a Monday night - which you know I reserve for ice cream and  _Antiques Roadshow_! - to get dressed again and rush over here and give you a massage and you called it an emergency?" Amy frowned. "Why didn't you ask when we spoke earlier, before I was relaxing in my nightgown?"

"It didn't hurt then. I was just angry."

That was probably true, Amy admitted. Stress-related muscle tension and aches didn't start until the initial adrenaline from the anger or fear itself had dissipated. The only thing hurting during their earlier phone call was Sheldon's feelings. Then she raised her nose and sniffed. "But you felt well enough to bake?"

"Lemon bars. But it wasn't this bad when I started to bake. And then Penny came over, and you know she just won't shut her clap-trap, it's all about  _her_ problems. She didn't care in the least that my friends are mad at me or that we agreed to an unrealistic timeline. Let me tell you, that only made this ball of torture in my back grow."

Amy studied her boyfriend's frustrated face and considered the plausibility of this sequence of events, even while she tried to ignore the sweet fragrance of fresh lemon bars.

"I know it's late, but I paid a premium for the chair to be delivered in less than hour and I've only rented it for twenty-four hours." Sheldon waved toward the center of his living room, where there was one of those special chairs with a face rest for back and neck massages.

"Sheldon, it took me longer to get dressed and drive over here than the three minutes you will let me touch you, even with that thing."

"I gave you a massage when you asked for one."

She sighed loudly. Honestly, she'd been waiting for it. The memories of the first and only massage that had occurred in their relationship. Last winter, she'd twisted a muscle in her back moving things around her lab and begged Sheldon to rub it on that evening's date night, telling him she'd instruct him on the steps. It had been a negotiation so lengthy it made their current conversation look like a blip. And, despite the fact he refused to allow her to remove her top, that he set an egg timer, and made her sign a release form that the massage was only for therapeutic purposes and not sexual in nature, he did manage to lessen her discomfort.

"Please, Amy." He stepped up closer and spoke softly. "It really hurts. I think my muscles spasmed from all the tension. I'll let you work it out for as long as it takes. I'll take off my shirt and everything."

"Well . . ." Amy pursed her lips. If he really was in that much discomfort . . . And she was already here . . . And it was Sheldon . . . And he  _had_  done it for her . . .

"Please, you're so good with your hands, you're the only one I'd trust."

"Okay." She finally took off her purse and set it down. "But if you want a serious deep tissue massage we're going to need some lotion to reduce friction."

"There's some in the bathroom." Sheldon turned and left.

Amy started to inspect the chair and made a few adjustments. Massage chairs such as this were not new to her. Her undergraduate anatomy professor had recommended taking massage therapy as an elective so that students could feel and understand how the muscles moved and responded in living, breathing humans not just the indifferent and preserved musculature that they saw on the cadavers in the lab. Amy, ever the over-achiever, had immediately signed up. But she hadn't expected to enjoy it as much as she did. Although realizing it was for the benefit of their volunteer patients, she found the action of giving the massage almost as soothing and as satisfying herself. So much so she even took and passed her massage therapist certification, although she never used it. When it expired two years later, she was too busy with her studies to renew it but she never forgot how.

"Here. Will this work?" Sheldon said, walking toward her from the bathroom.

Nodding, Amy took the bottle of Aveeno from his hand. "Off with your shirts. Both of them."

As he removed and folded his orange and yellow tee shirts, Amy removed her own cardigan and started to roll up her sleeves.

"Why are you disrobing? Do we need to sign the consent form again?" Sheldon asked.

"I'm  _not_ disrobing," Amy huffed. "I just want my full range of motion and I don't want to get any lotion on my sweater. It's dry clean only. Besides, I told you last time that assuming a massage is sexual is disrespectful to a serious paramedical profession."

"I'm not assuming anything," Sheldon said as he swung his long leg over the chair and lowered his face into the cradle. "I just know how you think."

Ignoring him, Amy put some lotion on her palm and started smoothing Sheldon's back and shoulders ( _He has such manly shoulders, so broad. No! Disrespectful!_ ), prodding gently to feel his muscles beneath the skin ( _He has such lovely skin on his back, so creamy and smooth. No! Not sexual!)_.

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, Amy dedicated herself to her task, concentrating on pulling her memories of how to do this correctly from the back of her mind. Although she genuinely thought that all human bodies were a beautiful miracle of design, Sheldon's was especially well formed. It was easy to locate each muscle on this back of Atlas, pressing and smoothing, following the ribbons of their fibers, running her knuckles down the sides of his bumpy vertebrae, carefully moving his arms to watch his shoulder blades curve beneath his skin before they settled into the exact spot she needed them to be.

"Does this hurt? I think there's a knot here," she asked, pressing on an especially tight spot.

He wiggled beneath her. "A little. But that's not it."

Continuing her explorations, it didn't take Amy long to located the problem area on Sheldon's right side. When she pressed against it, he jerked in the chair. "You were correct. There's a giant knot in your rhomboid major."

"You're telling me."

"Let me get that other one out of your left trapezius first. It won't take much, but I want to do it before I make you too sore." She moved to Sheldon's left side to reach the kink in question better.

"Sore?" Sheldon asked. "You're supposed to be making me feel bett - ohhhhhhhhh, yyyeeeaahh, right there."

Amy suppressed a giggle. The irony in Sheldon's rude comment about professional massage therapy was that Sheldon was the most vocal client she'd ever had, and anyone who heard those vocalizations would think there was far more happening than a therapeutic massage. When he was only happily whimpering, Amy pulled her hands away. "Better? The smaller one is gone."

"So good," was the breathless reply.

After putting on more lotion, Amy moved to his opposite side. "Sheldon, in all seriousness, this might hurt. I think that in order to break that knot, I'll have to use a lot of force. But you'll feel better in the long run, I promise. But tell me the second it's too painful and I'll stop. Is that okay?"

"Carry on."

As she started, his moaned a couple of times and then said, in time with her ministrations, "Yes, oh Lordy, yes, that's - OW!"

Amy snapped her hands back. "Too hard?"

"No, it's acceptable."

Starting again, Amy pressed and rolled and manipulated the muscle deep beneath his skin, even though Sheldon alternated his sounds of enjoyment with winces and hisses of discomfort. But he didn't stop her and Amy dug deeper trying to release the knot in Sheldon's back. Poor guy, no wonder he'd been frantic on the phone. His muscle was so contracted in on itself he probably was in genuine pain. Feeling guilty for doubting him, Amy kneaded as deeply as she could, but this lump, while smaller than it started, wasn't breaking for her. She needed more pressure.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if I use my elbow? I think I can get more pressure that way. If that doesn't work, honestly, you're going to need a muscle relaxer or graston or something beyond my skills."

"I doubt that. Carry on."

Her hands covered in lotion, Amy looked around hopelessly. She had rolled her sleeves up, but only to her forearms and it seemed unlikely she could roll further. "Just a minute," she murmured and went to wash her hands in the sink. "Is Leonard expected to return home tonight? Or is Penny coming back?" she called from the kitchen.

"No," Sheldon replied. "They went out to eat - to relieve stress, he said, if you can believe  _he_ would have any - and it's their night to stay across the hall. Leonard was only here long enough to gobble down four lemon bars without so much as a thank you. I hope he gets his karma in the form of some very sour heartburn tonight."

"Okay, good." Seeing no other way around it, Amy started to unbutton her blouse as she walked back toward Sheldon.

"Why do you - what are you doing?" Sheldon raised his face from the cradle of the massage chair. "You said it was degrading when I implied a massage could be sexual!"

"It's not sexual, Sheldon," Amy insisted, careful folding her blouse on top of her sweater where she'd left it on the corner of Sheldon's desk. "I just don't want to get the lotion all over my blouse. See, I'm leaving everything else on."

"Hmmmm," Sheldon said, but at least he put his head back down. "This is highly irregular."

"You're telling me," Amy mumbled, getting more lotion and bending over Sheldon's back again. It was absurd to be performing a massage in her bra and skirt. At least she was wearing her newest one today, not that blue one she really ought to throw out because the elastic was so loose. She kneaded the knot a few more times, just to assure herself of her tactic, and then she said, "Ready?"

"Yes."

Standing on her tip-toes, Amy applied all the force of her elbow to Sheldon's problem area and prodded with her other hand under she felt the muscle release.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch - oooohhhhhhhhh, Good Lord!"

"There. All gone." She rested back on the soles of her feet and smiled. "How do you feel? Sit up slowly and move around."

Sheldon sat up and he turned his head in each direction and then he rolled his shoulders blades back. "It's gone! I don't feel it any more. Oh, Amy, your hands are magic!"

Amy laughed. "And my elbow, don't forget my elbow!"

"Who could forget your elbow?" he said softly, twisting to reach for her arm and planting a small kiss on the joint. "Blah, lotion!" He pulled away, wiping his lips with his free hand. Amy smiled again, but before she could reply, he leaned toward her and softly kissed her shoulder instead. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." It was so satisfying to see how much better he felt and how genuinely grateful he was to her for her assistance.

She gasped as Sheldon pulled her toward him with one arm, encircling her waist, and planted a kiss on her clavicle. "Sheldon, as nice as this is, I'm covered in lotion and you know how I feel about purposely confusing the medical technique of massage with something sex -"

"I declare any medical techniques or treatments over and any and all recreational pursuits open for discussion."

"Recreational pursuits - oh, my!" Amy inhaled sharply when Sheldon stood in one swift motion, capturing her with two hands now and kissing her neck in a sloppy, wet kiss. "Discussion open and recreational pursuits agreed upon. Let me wash this lotion off first."

"Are you kidding?" Sheldon asked, swinging his leg over the seat of the massage chair so that he was completely free of it now. "We're bringing that with us!"

After a very brief pause to look at the plate of lemon bars on the island, Amy took his offered hand and reached out for Aveeno bottle with the other, grabbing it as she allowed herself to be tugged eagerly toward the bedroom.

* * *

His senses returning, Sheldon rolled over on his back and groaned. "Oh, no."

"What?" Amy asked, sitting up beside him and looking down at him, her skin still glistening from all the lotion he'd used. In her coy little way, Amy had suggested discovering erotic massages, and that's exactly what they'd done. Although he had to admit he didn't have Amy's level of professional skill, he'd still been able to reduce her to a slithery eel under his hands, slipping and sliding beneath him, rolling and twisting on the bed as he'd massaged her everywhere, so much so that he brought her to two separate orgasms, something he'd never achieved before. And that was all before she'd introduced him to something called a happy ending, which, although he found it very joyful indeed, only managed to make the mess even greater.

"I'm going to have to take the comforter to the laundry mat tomorrow to wash in one of those over-sized load machines. And it's not even Saturday!"

Amy giggled, pushing back her hair, which was even more unruly and tangled than usual. "Good thing I decided not to grab the lemon bars, too!"

* * *

**_I purposely left two important notes off last week, as I didn't want them to get lost in the shuffle._ **

**_Once again, thank you to the extremely talented rgbcn for her wonderful artwork based on this story!_ **

**_Most importantly, all of your gratitude should join with mine to my friend Melissa. First, she spent months convincing me I could write this even though it's a break with my usual process and also because she's interrupting her own busy life to do rapid turn-around beta readings for me. Truly, this story wouldn't be possible without her hard work behind the scenes._ **


	3. Episode Three: The Dependence Transcendence

**NOTE: Once again, these events occur before the tag scene, not after the episode is complete.**

* * *

"Hey, Ames, long time no see," Penny said after she opened the door.

"I came to check on Sheldon. I'm worried about him," replied Amy as she stepped the apartment.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I think you missed him. He's probably asleep. He put his pajamas on and went to his room. He even skipped laundry night."

"I know. He told me that he was going to get comfortable and curl up in bed with a comic book," Amy explained, slinging her purse over her body and setting it near the door. "I brought him some hot cocoa I've been saving." She held up the small container. She had been reserving this hot chocolate mix for a couple of months now for just such a situation. Last week, she'd remembered it only after she rushed out of her apartment, but it turned out the massage was a better idea anyway. " _Star Wars_. The mini marshmallows are shaped like the talking green cat and the trashcan robot."

"Really, though, you might check to see if he fell asleep," Leonard volunteered from where he was relaxing on the sofa. "We haven't heard him yelling at the implausibly of something, so I doubt that means he's reading. I don't know how much he told you, but he was really exhausted." Penny returned to sit next to him. "You can hang out with us, though."

Amy pursed her lips for a moment. Sheldon  _had_  said he was more exhausted than he ever remembered being, when he called her and told her about the events of the day. She hadn't been surprised, as she had been worried and warned him in an earlier text that this very thing might happen if he pushed himself too hard or starting drinking Red Bull. "Okay, I'll check," she nodded, setting the hot chocolate mix on the island on her way toward Sheldon's room.

The door was slightly ajar and there was a light coming from inside. She knocked softly. "Sheldon, are you awake? I brought you some special hot cocoa."

No answer.

Another gentle knock. "Sheldon?"

No reply. She stood in the hallway and debated. If he was asleep, she should let him get his sorely needed rest. However, she was concerned about him. Not just about the sleep deprivation or the caffeine consumption but more so by the way his voice broke when he told her that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Thus, the hot chocolate.

"I'm going to open this door unless you tell me not to." When she was met with only silence once more, Amy pressed the door open slowly.

Her tall boyfriend was there in his pajamas, but he was stretched out face-down on top of his still-made bed with his eyes closed. The lamp beside his bed was lit.  _Poor guy, he fell asleep even before he got under the covers._ Amy smiled softly at him and his handsome, peaceful face. The hot chocolate would have to wait. She tip-toed over and surveyed the scene. Could she try to pull the blankets down from under him? No, it was probably better to get another blanket to put over him and tuck him in with that. At least when he'd been drunk, he'd been awake and semi-cooperative, if a little handsy. (Not that she minded the handsiness; she had stayed up far too late in her own bed that night, reliving and embellishing those gestures to her great satisfaction.)

She flipped off the bedside lamp and turned to go get a blanket when Sheldon's hand reached out to touch her wrist. "Stay," he breathed out.

He still didn't look awake. "Sheldon?" she whispered. "I think you're just dreaming. I'm getting you a blanket to keep you warm."

"No," he murmured and then his eyes opened. "You stay and keep me warm."

Her heart pattered. "I think you're too tired for that."

Trying to shake his head against his pillow, all he accomplished was messing his hair. "Just sleep. You're warm." His eyes closed again.

Amy's heart thumped a very loud  _yes_  in her chest. It would be lovely to sleep wrapped up with Sheldon, and she still had two hidden sleepover packs. Sleepy Sheldon was adorable Sheldon. "Okay. But first, let's get you under these covers."

Sheldon relented and managed to sit up enough that the blankets could be rearranged. Amy tucked them up around his neck and couldn't help but kiss his forehead. "I'll be back soon."

"Promise?"

"I promise." But he was already asleep again. Amy backed quietly out of the door and returned to the living room. Leonard and Penny were still cuddling on the couch, watching a movie, and they turned toward her when she entered.

"What's up? How Sheldon?" Penny asked.

"I'm sleeping here tonight."

Penny leaned forward and Leonard bushed his eyebrows. "Wow, he must have perked up."

"We'll go across the hall," Penny offered, starting to get up.

"No, stay. We're just going to sleep. I think he just wants me there to cuddle with," Amy explained.

"Cuddle?" Leonard asked.

"Yes, cuddle," Amy huffed. "I'll just get my things."

First she went to her purse and got out her book, because she never traveled anywhere without a book just in case there was a literature-related emergency such as this, and then she crossed to the window to remove one of her sleepover packs that she'd duct taped to the back of the curtain ages ago.

"What's that?" Penny asked.

"An emergency sleepover pack. There's another one in the floor safe, but if I get that out you guys will know what the combination is."

Leaving her friends' baffled faces behind, Amy went to the bathroom to change into her nightgown and to brush her teeth. Sheldon hadn't moved from where she'd left him, and he was even giving off soft, puffy almost-snores as she gingerly crawled into bed next to him. As it was early for her bedtime, she considered her options. Could she read as she normally would before sleep or would that disturb him? This was new territory as they'd never spent a night together in the same bed without making love first. Even the night of their blanket fort sleepover, Sheldon had let her have the sofa while he slept on the floor.

Amy looked down at him and smiled. Making love before sleep was wonderful, of course, but this was another one of her dreams coming true. Just sleeping next to Sheldon, completing their nightly rituals, falling into an easy rhythm that accompanied living together, marriage . . . Okay, so it was early and he was clearly exhausted and this probably wasn't the norm, but it was close enough for her. And it didn't appear that he had noticed her movements at all -even when she turned on the lamp on her side of the bed he didn't flinch - so it was probably safe to read.

A few chapters later, Amy's eyelids became heavy and, after she stifled a yawn, she shut her book, took off her glasses, turned off the light, setting both on the bedside table. She then slid down between the covers. Not long after she heard the sounds of Leonard and Penny retreating to Leonard's bedroom next door. She reached out and barely touched the back of Sheldon's dark hair and even this didn't cause him to stir. Sheldon was still deep in slumber, and she smiled, on the edge of sleep, that her dreams were coming true.

* * *

It wasn't so much the heaviness of his arm around her waist that woke her, as it was not unusual for her to find herself cuddling with Sheldon in just such a fashion after a night of torrid lovemaking. Rather, it was probably the sounds of the Sheldon's apartment that kept her from falling as deeply asleep as normal.

Regardless of the cause, Amy smiled. Maybe Sheldon noticed her presence in his bed after all. Not that she wouldn't take some torrid lovemaking, but this was almost as good. Leonard was correct, Sheldon still wasn't a cuddler during his waking hours, so having his warm body surround her and hold her while he was unconscious was the closest she got.

Just as she thought that she'd probably fall into a deeper sleep, her eyes popped open as she felt her hair being brushed away from her neck. Was that an accident? No, not an accident as Sheldon's soft lips fell onto the skin exposed there.

"Sheldon?" she whispered.

"Mmmm?" was the only reply as another soft kiss landed. Then his palm slid up her stomach to rest just below her breast, and his long index finger gently brushed the edge. "Yes?" he shifted and whispered, hot breath in her ear.

_Hooo._

"I was going to ask if you were awake, but I guess so," Amy whispered back.

"I wasn't answering you -" he pressed harder against her bottom and she felt him even through all the layers "- I was asking you if you were interested in proceeding."

"Yes." It came out mostly as desire.

She started to roll over, but Sheldon squeezed her. "Stay."

Amy did not have to wonder for long what he had in mind because his hand slid up even further and started to encircle her nipple through the flannel of her nightgown. Something about the gentle friction of the soft fabric amplified the sensations. Then, suddenly, Sheldon's hot mouth was on her earlobe and her back arched. "Hooooo - Wait!"

He stopped.

"We can't. Leonard and Penny are the other side of that wall."

There was a pause, and she imagined him tilting his head. "I seem to remember you telling me that engaging in physical displays of affection while in public made them more exciting."

She had? Amy furrowed her brow. She was positive she'd never once suggested having sex in public. "When?"

"When you coerced me into kissing you beneath the mistletoe while we were Christmas tree shopping."

"That was kissing, not sex."

"This is the privacy of my bedroom, not public."

"Well, yes, so why did you use that as your argument in the first place?"

"Hush, woman," he said softly and his tongue make contact with her earlobe again.

Even in the midst of the tingles spreading through her body, Amy giggled. "Has desire clouded your logic?"

"I'm serious. Hush." This time his suckled on her tiny appendage, causing Amy to clench her teeth to quiet her moan. "If you think you can, I'll continue."

"I'll be as quiet as a church mouse," Amy promised.

"No one here believes that." Not that it seemed he cared, as he started his ministrations on Amy's breast again, rhythmically pressing himself against her.

It was new and strange in this position because she couldn't see him and couldn't kiss him and really couldn't touch him, other than to lightly lay her fingertips on the back of his hand as he massaged first one breast and then the other. It was exciting, lying passively, letting Sheldon's aroused body surround her, giving him all this control to make her back arch and her breath come harder and faster. It was only when he moved up to touch the buttons on her nightgown that she actively started to participate by unbuttoning them. Quickly, he slipped his hand inside and found her now exposed breast. All the previous over-the-nightgown action had only made her nipple more sensitive, so much so she gave a full body shiver of pleasure when he touched it.

"Are you ready?" he whispered, suddenly lowering his hand, reaching down to her waist to gather her nightgown up.

"Yes - Oh!" she hissed when Sheldon moved so swiftly to surprise her, his fingers sliding down the front of her panties to touch her.

"Let - me - roll - over," she panted.

"Stay."

Suddenly he was gone, her back cold without him, as he struggled to remove his pajama pants and underwear. Amy craned her neck around to determine what his was doing, and then she twisted to reach down and slide her own underpants down her legs.

"Here," Sheldon offered, grabbed them from her thighs and pulled them down the rest of the way, and she smiled when she could see his silhouette folding them even in the dark.

She raised up on one elbow to reach for the hem of her nightgown, but Sheldon gently pushed her back down on her side. "It's fine. Stay."

There was barely time to raise her eyebrows, before Sheldon was wrapping around her again, propping himself up on one elbow as his palm smoothed its way down her bottom toward her center. On instinct, she pulled her top leg up tighter, rolling forward slightly to give him access, as his hand found her again, this time from behind. Groaning at the new sensation, she turned her face toward him and there was no preamble to the desirous moves he made with his lips and tongue as his mouth eagerly sought hers.

And Sheldon was there, prodding twice to find the right spot, and then slowly and gently filling her.

"Oh, Sheldon," she moaned away from the kiss as he paused to allow her to adjust.

"Shhhh," he bent down to whisper in her ear.

He moved slow and delicate, filling her, leaving her, filling her, leaving her. It felt better than Amy would have imagined this position could be, especially after Sheldon shifted his weight and hit her in a new spot on the next thrust.

"Right there," she whispered. Either his confidence in this position was growing or her words had encouraged him as he sped up. There he was, behind her, wrapped around her, even as he was thrusting firmly inside of her. Amy's whole body was reacting to the sensation, but her very core was aching for release. Sheldon's breath picked up and she knew it wouldn't be long for him, now. She wanted release too, but, as wonderful as Sheldon's body was feeling inside of her, she knew it wouldn't be enough. Lifting her leg, she managed to free it and hooked it around Sheldon's, giving her the room she needed to reach down and . . . oh, yes.

Sheldon froze just when she made contact.

"Is this okay?" she whispered.

Instead of replying, he started moving again. Amy let out of a breath. She'd surprised him, that's all.

Oh, yes . . . she squeezed her eyes as she touched herself in time with his trusts. She felt his hot rattling breath on her neck and it seemed that when he pressed against her back that both her nightgown and his pajama top were wet with sweat. Something different was happening here, and Amy wasn't exactly sure how to explain it. But it felt primal and visceral, as though they'd both left the parts of their brains that usually analyzed every action and response of their sexual encounters behind. Maybe it was this new position, Sheldon almost entirely controlling her, holding everything but her arm still as he thrust ever harder behind her, the darkness and the position keeping her from seeing his face. Oh, it was good, the force of him in her, the way it felt to touch herself -

It came suddenly, even without the warning twitches in her feet she was used to, and she barely managed to turn her face into the pillow before she cried out, the waves crashing over her, one following another, more than she was even used to, and at the end Sheldon's month was on her shoulder, groaning loudly into it, the tips of his teeth pressing down into her nightgown.

He relaxed behind her, and Amy disentangled their legs. Neither of them said anything, panting in the dark, the cold air hitting the naked bottom half of their bodies even as Amy felt so hot she knew she would have to take off her nightgown.

Sitting up, even though it meant removing Sheldon's arm from around her waist, she lifted the damp garment over her head and threw it on the floor.

"You really ought to fold that," Sheldon's voice said, and, nodding, Amy started to throw her legs over the edge of the bed to get up and do just that.

"No," he said firmly, reaching out to touch her waist and tug her back. "Never mind. Leave it. Just stay."

* * *

He awoke with a start, and his eyelids fluttered in the too-bright room. Oh, yes, Sunday. What time was it? Sheldon tried to lift his body, but he was under some sort of weight. His hand reached down and brushed his bare hip.

Oh, yes, Amy. He smiled, bringing his hand up to place it over hers that was gripping his chest from behind. She was spooning him. It all came back to him now, the overwhelming confusion in the lab, Leonard's soothing, the conversation with Amy . . . There was no memory of getting in bed though, and no memory of how Amy ended up there, either. When did she come -

His eyebrows shot up. There was something he clearly remembered. He silently cursed as it became apparent to him that his body remembered it, too. It had been . . . different. Less foreplay. Faster. Had he pushed too hard, too fast, and all that animalistic energy and drive he experienced came to the surface and he - he bit her.

Oh dear. He opened his mouth and bit his girlfriend's shoulder as he mounted her like a primitive quadruped. There was no excuse for that, no matter how exhausted he was, no matter how much instinct had taken over, even if his climax has been the hardest and strongest he remembered. He had allowed himself one energy drink, and now he was out of control, treating his girlfriend the way The Hulk probably did. Amy would be furious when she woke up, no doubt, and he had no excuse for his behavior and surely this coupled with the new evidence that he wasn't the savant that she thought him to be -

"Amy, I'm sorry for everything," he whispered, certain she wasn't even awake to hear it.

He started when her lips kissed his shoulder though his pajama top, a mirror image of where he had bit her. "Why? It was so hot. All of it," she whispered.

"Really?"

"Really." She kissed his shoulder again. "Especially the end."

He didn't believe that Amy would ever lie to him - after all, she'd very clearly informed him that The Flash wasn't welcome in their bed either - but he wished he had some empirical evidence to support her claims. If only she'd said or done something at the time - Oh! How could he have forgotten? Amy had touched herself, right there in bed with him. He hadn't considered that as part of their intimate life. And yet . . . he liked it. He liked that she obviously liked it. Even though he couldn't see it, he imagined it while he thrust into her and he listened to the sounds she made and when she climaxed it was five-point-three seconds longer than normal. And there was no arguing with his finely tuned orgasm-timer-abilities. Yes, Amy really had enjoyed it, especially the end.

If only that were all of it. Swallowing, he was glad she was behind him and he didn't have to look her in the eyes. "Not just that. I'm - I've disappointed you. I've disappointed myself. I'm not the genius you thought I was."

"That's not true."

"It is. I don't deserve you. I certainly don't deserve to share a bed with you -"

"Stop." She squeezed him tightly from behind. "I love you, Sheldon Cooper. Let that be enough."

He considered this. Despite the conviction in her voice, he wondered if it really was enough.

"Amy -"

"Shhhh," she murmured, relaxing her grip but wrapping about him, holding him still. "You're more than enough. No more talking. Just stay and keep me warm. I'm cold."

"You wouldn't be cold if you hadn't thrown your nightgown off the bed all willy-nilly."

But the only response he got was the soft sound of her falling back asleep. He found a smile and it had nothing to do with math or his IQ or anything outside of his bed. Amy loved him and she would stay and it was more than enough.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _

_**Just a reminder you can follow me on Instagram as aprilinparisfanfic for story teasers and such.** _


	4. Episode Four: The Cohabitation Experimentation

_**Some stories come flowing out almost fully formed, and others struggle and fight and are never the way you want them to be. This is the latter. My apologies in advance. I know your expectations were high after such a wonderful episode, but it's impossible to improve upon perfection**_.

* * *

  _If she thinks my bonafides are a null set, I'll show her!_

Sheldon stormed across the hall, all sorts of passion stirring in his mind and his loins, and he barely waited for Amy to clear the door to Penny's apartment before he slammed it shut behind her and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his body against her.

"Do not insult my mathematical abilities!" he growled as he walked her backwards toward the sofa.

"I wouldn't have to if you didn't question my scientific rigor!" Amy shot back, her green eyes still flaring just has they had been across the hall, even as she let herself be led to the blue love seat in such a fashion. "You! -" it was she who pulled him down onto the little sofa and he eagerly followed "- Arrogant! -"

Never had he wanted to silence her so badly. And never using such a particular manner. Putting his hands on the side of her face to hold her still, he leaned over to close his mouth over hers. He caught her mid-sentence, which he didn't mind in the least as he was immediately able to slide his tongue against hers. He tasted her gasp of surprise more than anything else.

This was nothing like their previous make-out sessions, all of which he enjoyed immensely. Normally, they were sweet and controlled, as he sank slowly with equal depth into the sofa cushions and her mouth. They were languid and gently hazy: Amy's arms around his neck, rubbing his thumb along her hip, the warmth and softness of her lips. Often he'd purposely wait for her to be the one to deepen it. He liked guessing how long she'd wait, he liked feeling all the slight movements she made with her kisses to coax him to open his mouth, and the almost shy way he relented and joined her.

Nothing was shy this morning. This - this! - woman! - with her words and accusations and her adorable night gown and the defiance in her voice and the heat radiating from her body, she thought she could . . . something. Whatever it was, it was infuriating and intoxicating at the same time. What an unexpected combination. Even as he advanced further, opening his mouth wider, tasting and analyzing and choosing to ignore the bitter taste of coffee, Sheldon reached down and released the knot in her robe. Oh, how he needed her closer, so much closer, and Amy seemed unfilled, too, pawing and grasping at his the lapel of his robe, her mouth moving fast and sharp against his.

He put hands on her waist and pulled her toward him encouraging her to lift her legs and wrap up and around him. Even as he tasted her tongue, drinking greedily from all she had to offer him, the pop of surprise in her throat, he somehow got Amy to straddle his lap. Just as he hoped, her nightgown had skirted its way up in all the movement and was now bunched around her waist. Only her thin cotton panties separated her from him. He pulled her amble bottom closer, groaning into her mouth as his arousal pressed against her heat.

His eyes snapped open when Amy hands landed on his chest, pushing him back. "We have to stop," she panted, her lips red and her cheeks flushed.

"Why? You asked me if I wanted to make-out and I answered in the affirmative."

"I'm worried this is escalating too much. You're - you're erect." The flush of her cheeks deepened and spread across the rest of her face. He hadn't seen that embarrassed bloom since the first time they'd made love, when he shimmied out of his underpants under her covers and shyly placed her hand over what he both so desperately wanted and was terrified of her touching. The memory of how good her hand felt there was not helping matters.

"I don't mind," he informed her. Still holding her bottom, he gave another small thrust with his hips, closing his eyes as the heat of her nether regions simmered him slowly. Her bottom felt like a block of ice compared to this. "It feels good," he whispered as he slowly opened is eyes. "Don't you think so? Past experience tells that you agree."

"Yesss -" Amy started to moan and then he watched her forcibly silence it by biting her lip. "Be that as it may, I made you a promise, Sheldon. We are not settled in our living arrangements. We didn't even sleep well last night, and, honestly, I'm baffled. We've slept together before and we've never had all those problems. We did it just last week!"

"We always made love before." He wanted it sound enticing.

Amy's brow furrowed. "What are you saying?"

Sighing, Sheldon slowly lowered his arms and shifted his pelvis slightly away from hers. "I had weird dreams all night last night. Dreams about touching you, dreams about you touching me, dreams about wanting to touch you and I couldn't. Oh, and this weird one about Feynman that seemed unrelated." He licked his lips. "I was afraid I'd wake up aroused, that I'd initiate things like I did last week, but I promised you that we wouldn't have coitus. I want to respect your wishes. It's why I wanted the pillow wall, to make it less likely." He shrugged. "I think there was too much tension."

"Wait. Are you telling me that you  _do_  want to be intimate during this experiment?" Sheldon nodded in reply. "Then why did you agree when I suggested no coitus? Why did you say it was a relief?"

"Because I respect you and I wanted to comprise with you. I was relieved to know what you wanted, what you did and didn't expect from me." He looked down softly and rubbed her hip, just the way he often liked to do when they were kissing on the sofa, trying to ignore the alluring feel of her bare pale skin. "I want you to be happy and enjoy this, otherwise you may not want to repeat it."

"Repeat it?"

Looking up, he replied, "A secondary confirmative experiment. You know, repeating the experience again under slightly different parameters."

"Such as?"

"Repeating it in non-neutral environment to be determined, either your apartment or mine."

"Oh, Sheldon . . ." Amy smiled. "But you do realize we can't make love every single night, right? We really do have to learn how to sleep together - just sleep."

Sheldon nodded. "I have a suggestion, but then you'll have cause to ridicule  _my_  scientific rigor." His girlfriend looked at him expectantly. Of course she was; he shouldn't have mentioned it. She always made him throw out the rules. "Oh, fine. My suggestion is: let's not have rules. Let's just get in bed and snuggle and . . . see what happens. It's my understanding that's how this sort of environment normally functions."

But the truth was he was happy and willing to live without these rules for Amy, with Amy, not because of some normative. There had never been any rules about their intimacy before. At first, it was because he had no context under which to create them. And then it was because he enjoyed it so much more than expected; but he didn't want to be one to suggest making love again, so soon. When Amy had plunked him down at her little dining table and told him she'd made a mistake and would he possibly consider making plans to be intimate again, say two nights hence, even though it had only been three weeks, it had been all he could do not to sweep her off to the bedroom right then and there. The two nights hence might as well had been the next millennium they crawled by so slowly.

"That is the sexiest thing you've said all day."

"Really?" Sheldon reached for her thigh, wanting her pressing him again, so that he could feel her closer to him, even through all his layers of clothing. "The sexiest thing I've heard all day was what your pelvis was just saying to mine. That is, if I have your permission to continue."

"Yes," Amy purred, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him from above, tilting his head back. "Keep talking sexy to me with those lips and I'll keep talking sexy to you with my hips."

"Marie Curie's bloomers," he hushed into her mouth.

She froze, her lips tantalizing the very edges of his. "On second thought, let's just let our bodies do the conversing."

His body shuddered in agreement as her pelvis roared hard against him right where he wanted it to and her hands whispered as they untied the knot in his robe.

* * *

**_Thank you in advance for your reviews!_ **


	5. Episode Five: The Hot Tub Contamination

Locking the door with a satisfying click behind Leonard and Penny, Amy turned and leaned back against it.

"I thought they'd never leave," she said quietly to Sheldon, just in case she could be overheard.

"Why were they over here anyway? And why did they come into the bathroom with us?" Sheldon turned toward the kitchen and shook his head. "What weirdos."

Amy smiled and went to join him, sitting at the island that formerly - and technically still - belonged to Penny. She watched Sheldon finding a glass, getting out his powered Strawberry Quik mix, pouring the glass of milk, and stirring it all together. Despite their mutually overzealous grumbling today, he really had adapted quite well to living here in the past week. Of course, it was only temporary and Amy was sure he missed his furniture and collectibles just as much as she missed her own things, but she couldn't help but feel optimistic about how well it boded for their future. Especially after his heartfelt apology and the way he invited her in for a hug in the bathroom.

Then, suddenly, Sheldon stood a little bit taller. "I'm sorry. Would you like some, too?"

Yes, it all boded very well, indeed. "No, thank you," she grinned. "I'm surprised you want something sweet again. You said you and Penny went out for ice cream."

"Yes, but I hardly ate any," Sheldon said, coming to sit at the empty stool next to her.

"Oh?"

He sighed and took a long drink of flavored milk. "I did something I swore I'd never do," he said softly.

"Put strawberry syrup on peanut butter ice cream?" she asked, even though she knew that wasn't so from the timbre of his voice and the droop of his shoulders. But he'd already apologized once for his behavior and made yet another commitment to her, so Amy didn't want him to feel guilty anymore. She knew that if she continued to hold grudges even after Sheldon's apologizes and attempts to change, then she would be just as inflexible and uncompromising as she had accused him of being.

"Yuck, no!" His nose wrinkled but smoothed out quickly before he took a deep breath. "Do you think the propensity for infidelity is heredity, just like alcoholism is believed to be?"

"Oh!" Amy snapped back in surprise. "Well - I'm sorry, Sheldon, I will answer your question but I feel that I cannot do so without knowing exactly why you ask. You said you didn't really want to see other people. Not that I thought you did, anyway. Did something . . . happen today?"

"This thing is I already see other woman."

The air left Amy's body, even as she knew that what he was saying wasn't true. "What do you mean?"

He looked away from her and down his glass. "I literally see women everywhere now. That they  _are_  woman. I notice the color of their hair and then I think it is not the perfect shade of 72% cocoa that yours is. Or I notice the curve of their -" he flushed "- hips and I think about how your hips curve and I calculate the difference before deciding the curve of yours is more aesthetically pleasing. Once, on the bus, I sat by a woman who smelled so strongly of fresh tea leaves that I couldn't help but study her out the corner of my eye as I debated about asking her where she obtained the tea so that I could procure some for you. Or the time I saw a woman with a monkey on her backpack, and it made me think of you and I watched her walking for longer than I should have -"

"Sheldon." Amy put her hand out on his shoulder and he looked back at her. "Are you saying you look at all these other women just to compare them to me?"

"No. That's just it," he shook his head miserably, "I don't look at them for that reason. Something else makes me notice them, and it is only after I have spent time staring at them that I realize it's just longing for you."

Amy put her free palm on her chest and tried to catch a breath. "That's so romantic."

"But how? What if that's how it all starts, infidelity? What if one day I stop thinking about you and only think of that woman?"

"Oh." Yes, his first question.

Then Sheldon told her a story that he said he'd told Penny earlier that day, about his father in bed with another woman. As the story finished, he looked down at his glass of Quik and ran his thumbnail along the condensation forming. "I'm worried. I never thought about women, any woman, that way until I started to think about you that way. And now that I think about you that way with relish. What if, someday, I look at another woman with that much relish?"

"Sheldon, look at me." His nervous eyes met hers. "You won't."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because you are not your father. The very fact that you have such heightened awareness of your emotions and actions . . . " Amy shrugged. "You won't."

"But how do you know?"

"If no other reason than look at me. I'm the total package. Who or what could compare to me?" She grinned at him. "You know, on second thought, I think I will have a glass of Quik."

* * *

"Sheldon?"

"Mmmm?" He asked into his pillow.

"Do you really think of me when you look at all those other women?"

His eyes popped open and he felt his entire body stiffen. He just knew this would happen, even if Amy seemed so understanding and self-confident earlier this evening when he apologized to her. Maybe he shouldn't have told her. Yet, he'd promised himself that wouldn't be come his father, that he wouldn't keep secrets and be dishonest with the woman he loved. He promised himself that as he ran to her apartment last fall, the Beach Boys song replaying in a loop in his head, that he would be honest and tell Amy he loved her and stop pretending he was fine with just being her platonic friend. It was then, too, that he realized he could make love to her, because he loved her and because he wanted to. If he was honest with her about that, too, then he wouldn't become his father.

His stomach plummeted in shame. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "If you want me to pack my things and return across the hall, I understand."

There was a great deal of motion in the bed as he felt Amy turn and then saw her shadow sitting up the dark. "Why would I want that?"

"Because I've failed. Not because I told you, but because I allowed it to happen in the first place. My wandering eyes. Just like a bad country song." He swallowed. "I'm no better than my father, and I saw what that did to my mother. I don't want that to happen to you. I know you were just putting on a brave face earlier."

"Sheldon -"

"Uuggg!" He covered his face as Amy flipped on the bedside lamp without warning.

"- listen to me. No, listen to yourself. Did you even hear what you told me earlier?"

"Which part?" He asked, lowering his hands, squinting up at his girlfriend, her face furrowed in a concerning way.

"When you said -" she flushed and looked down at her hands "- when you said you see a woman's hair and it makes you think of mine. Or my hips or my smell."

"Yes, of course I recall what I said, but I don't understand how that's supposed to be helpful. I was confessing to you," he ended weakly.

"Yes, you were confessing," Amy looked back at him, "but don't you understand? You weren't confessing about what you liked better in other women. You were confessing the things you think about me and my . . . body. I loved it. I never thought you were really interested in seeing other women, anyway, but when you said that . . . That's when I knew for sure that your fears would never become a reality."

It was Sheldon's turn to sit up. "You did?"

Amy nodded. "Especially the part about my hips."

"I notice the curve of their hips," Sheldon repeated tentatively, "and I think about how your hips curve and I calculate the difference before deciding the curve of yours is more aesthetically pleasing."

"Yes, that. I like that."

"Why?"

"Because you're telling me my body is better than that woman's. It's nice to hear."

"But don't you want to be loved and appreciated for your mind? I know I do."

Amy nodded. "Of course. But not to the exclusion of the physical things you appreciate about me. Don't you . . . Don't you like it when I notice your body, too?"

Tilting his head, Sheldon considered the way Amy looked at him when he got out of the shower. The way she pretended to brush her teeth but he caught her watching him towel off in the mirror. The way he had to turn away both to hide his smile and make sure she could properly view his backside.

"It's true. And your body is better - much more pretty - that any I've ever seen. I'll never want another one in my bed." It was as he said it that he knew that Amy was correct, that he would not become his father. Because he meant it, he meant it with every ounce of his own being. Amy was all that he desired, every single part of her. It was unfathomable that he would ever feel that way about anyone else.

He reached out and took a lock of her hair, gently turning it in his hands. "I notice the color of their hair and then I think it is not the perfect shade of chocolate that yours is."

She smiled softly and then asked, a catch in her voice, "Is there nothing about me you would change to look like someone else? The Borg lady on that one  _Star Trek_ show, for example."

"Seven of Nine?" He raised his eyebrows and Amy nodded the affirmative. "No, I don't compare you to her. Why would I? Your hair style is much more pleasing. I like to be able to run my hands through it when we're intimate."

Amy smiled softly. "Really? You don't compare me to others and find me lacking? I know I'm not perfect."

"Never lacking." He paused. Honesty. Here in their (pseudo-, short-term, borrowed) bed above all. "But I do compare you to other things."

She tilted her head. "What things? How?"

"Well, your eyes, for insistence -" he angled closer to look straight into them "- I will never see kryptonite again without thinking how your eyes outshine all of it."

"Oh, Sheldon," she murmured.

"Or your lips. Not even the color of a Jigglypuff can mimic their precious shade of pink." He leaned forward and kissed her, softly.

"Jigglypuff?" Amy asked.

"The Pokémon."

He brushed her hair back to expose the ear closest to him. "And your ears." Running his fingertip down the outside curl, he said, "More delicate than the sinuous curves of the outer hull on  _Serenity_." First he kissed her helix and then he leaned closer to suck on her earlobe until he heard her moan.

" _Serenity_?"

"The spaceship on  _Firefly_."

"Your neck," he said, pulling away and brushing the back of his hand down to the top of her nightgown, "even Cirith Ungol cannot compare with its strength and uprightness." Glancing up at her confused face, he added, "One of the five main towers in  _The Lord of the Ring_  trilogy."

Amy giggled a little at that, and he hushed her by slowly unplucking the buttons of her nightgown, one by one, until he could push it down her shoulder just enough to explore the divot in the middle of her collar bone.

"Your suprasternal notch. Not even the chalice in  _Indiana Jones and The Holy Grail_ can contain its wonders."

"That's a bit rich, don't you think?" Amy said softly. Sheldon leaned forward and flicked his tongue in the indentation in question. Breathless, she hushed, "Okay, tell me everything."

Smiling at her, Sheldon reached down for the hem of her nightgown. "I hoped you'd say that."

After Amy had helped him pull the garment over her head, Sheldon took in the sight of her creamy skin. "Your skin - " he brushed his hand across her bare shoulder - "not even the White Witch could cast a spell this pure." He glanced back up. "From  _The Lion, The Witch_  -"

"-  _and the Wardrobe_ ," Amy finished for him.

He reached for her arm and brought her hand up to kiss her knuckles, just as he imagined some clichéd romance novel character doing. "And your hands. Even Spider-Man is not so dexterous as you."

"Lean back," he said softly, pressing gently on her shoulder. Amy complied, falling softly into the pillows. Sheldon leaned over her and trailed a smattering of kissed down from her clavicle even as he brought his hand up to hold her breast in his palm. "Your breasts . . . The Death Star longs to be this spherical."

"The Death Star? You're comparing my breasts to a weapon of mass destruction?"

Pausing, Sheldon considered. "Okay, then, the Snitch. Golden, elusive, and sought after." Arching over her, he twirled his tongue around her nipple and his girlfriend moaned in satisfaction. "And it only responds to he who first caught it."

Amy chuckled above him, and he angled to apply the same treatment to her opposite breast. "I must be a very talented seeker to have two Snitches of such high quality."

Pulling down the blankets as he went, he trailed the tip of his tongue down the center of her breast and onto her stomach, past her heaving diagram. "Your abdomen - endless and curved as the hull of the  _Enterprise_."

There was a sound from above and Sheldon couldn't decide if it was a positive sound or not. It suddenly occurred to him that just might be the type of utterance that Howard had mentioned had sent him to sleep on the sofa more than once. Quickly, he added, "Just as flat and smooth, too."

"Good save," Amy murmured. Sheldon shivered as she slowly ran her fingers through his hair, her fingernails lightly scraping his scalp.

Smiling, Sheldon hooked his fingers on the top of her panties. "May I?"

"Please do."

He used the opportunity to rid her of the covers altogether and to expose her entire body to the air, and he watched goosebumps rise upon the flesh of her legs. "Your legs." He brushed the palms of his hands up them and he crept closer to her, warming them and caressing them at the same time. "Even Wonder Woman's are not so strong and shapely. And these hips. Well, you know what I think of these hips." He gently squeezed those ideal curves.

Sheldon paused there, on the edge of her abdomen and considered his next move, looking down into her belly button. It was essential to him that Amy knew she was the most beautiful creature in the world to him, that there would never be another that he would look at and silently compare to her. That there would never be another he would want in his bed. He knew what the next step needed to be. Had to be. It was essential that Amy knew that he also recognized her total package.

Swallowing, he pushed himself downward to kiss the dark wiry curls at the apex of her thighs, even as he used his hand to trace the inside of them, encouraging her to spread her legs further.

"And this, this is the spice."

"Spice?" Amy asked above him, although he heard the tremor in her voice.

"The Melange from  _Dune_. It's a highly fragrant, additive commodity. It is prized and valued about all else in the world." He brushed his finger against her folds in order to hear her gasp and cause her to open her legs wider. "This is your spice, prized and valued."

There was a rustle about him and he looked up to see Amy's concerned face. She had raised herself up on her elbows to look at him. "Sheldon, you don't have to do that," she said softly.

He shook his head but didn't break her gaze. His heart thumped ever louder in his chest as his sensitive nose started to pick up the notes of her arousal. Oh, dear. It was stronger than he'd even imagined. What if he hated the taste of her? What if he couldn't do this? What if -

"It's okay," Amy said softly. "I understand that I haven't showered in fourteen hours and even if I had just bathed, you still might find it repulsive -"

"No. Not repulsive," he sharply corrected her; and with that, his decision was indubitable. He pushed himself further down the bed and pressed gently for her to open her legs wide enough accommodate his shoulders. He gulped and looked down at her most holy of places, dark pink and ripe. His heart pounding in his chest, he considered how to proceed with what he was thinking about doing. Planning to do. Going to do. For Amy.

His eyes swept up, searching for her again. "I want to be like Data."

"Data?" she furrowed her brow.

"I want to learn multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring."

"Hooooooo."

"May I learn now?"

"Oh, please do."

Taking a deep breath, letting himself become accustomed to her smell and the sight of her, Sheldon knew he was ready to be addicted to her. Gulping, he leaned forward as he heard her head fall back against the bed, and he kissed her there. She gasped above him, and he pulled back to consider his next move. Even this secret part of her, he knew with a certainly that can only accompany faith in the unseen, was unparalleled by any other woman who had existed before and or would exist after.

"I love you, Sheldon," Amy whispered.

Leaning forward, laving over her with trepidation, he found confidence first in her words and then the encouraging sounds Amy made. Most of all, he discovered his previous fears were unfounded and all he could taste was her love.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	6. Episode Six: The Fetal Kick Catalyst

"Keep the change," Amy said to taxi cab driver as she shut the door behind Stuart. She watched the car drive away before she started the walk back up to 4B.

Sheldon was sitting at the table, having procured a straw from somewhere in her absence, and he busy trying to suck every last molecule of mimosa out his glass. "Why isn't there any more of this orange juice?" he whined. "It's delicious."

"I think you've had more than enough of that orange juice," Amy said firmly, coming over to take his glass and Stuart's forgotten one toward the kitchen. She frowned slightly at the dishes she had left there when the text came that the taxi was downstairs. She'd have to remember to call Stuart later, to make sure he was okay.

"Hey!" Sheldon called, getting up to follow her. "That's mine!"

Ignoring him, Amy opened the refrigerator to put the leftovers away, bending down to put the containers on the shelf near the bottom. She froze when Sheldon's arms wrapped around her waist as he draped himself over her back. "Amy, I've been thinking . . ."

"I should hope so."

"That this shade of pale blue is especially alluring on you," he finished.

"Thank you." Her cheeks flushing, Amy stood, forcing Sheldon to let go of her. "But I've been thinking you're a little bit tipsy."

"I don't get tipsy." He swayed as he stepped back. "And I most certainly don't do  _anything_ just a little bit. It's all or nothing, baby."

"I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that three years ago."

"I'll build you a time machine."

Amy shook her head and shut the refrigerator. She'd wait to put the leftovers away and rearrange things as best as she could after she'd taken care of Sheldon, who clearly needed her attention more at the moment. "I think you should lie down and take nap while your blood alcohol content decreases."

"Take one with me," Sheldon breathed out, the fruity smell of his mimosa-breath close to her face.

"I have to get these dirty linens -"

"A little dirt never hurt anybody." His fingers reached up to toy with her hair.

"You're right. You're not a little bit tipsy. You're _very_ tipsy." She actually thought he was drunk as the Sheldon she knew would never say dirt wasn't harmful, but she wasn't quite sure where the line between the two was without a breathalyzer.

"Am not."

"Are, too. Come on, let's get you to bed." Amy took his extended arm and wrapped it around her neck, using her other hand to support his lean body. Sheldon stumbled slightly as he moved with her toward the bedroom.

"Will you go to bed with me?"

"No. I just told you I have other things to do. And you need to sleep this off."

"We could make looovvvve," he leaned over and whispered as she struggled to open the bedroom door with one hand.

"No. There will never be any intimate actions between us when consent can only be dubious at best."

"I'm Sheldon Cooper. I'm never dubious." He reached over and squeezed her breast. "Why do you cover your breasts all the time? They're so pretty."

"Okay, handsy, here we go." Amy helped him slump onto the bed.

Sheldon patted the comforter next to him. "Oh, I've got it! A nooner!"

Shaking her head, Amy reached down to remove first his shoes and then his socks. The truth was she actually enjoyed tipsy, handsy Sheldon, mostly because he was less inhibited than usual, saying and doing things that she'd love a sober Sheldon to say and do. But the point was he wasn't sober, and she was serious when she said that she'd never agree to make love to him when he wasn't in possession of his full faculties. After all, it was those faculties that she loved best about him. Besides, after what a very sober and serious Sheldon did last week, she no longer felt she was missing out on anything.

"I'll do that thing I did last week," Sheldon said as Amy reached up to help him unbutton his shirt, startling her. How had he guessed what she was thinking about? Were her cheeks burning in pleasure (so much pleasure!) at the memory?

"No, thank you," she demurred. "I don't think you have the coordination right now, anyway."

"Do you know there are eight separate muscles in the human tongue?"

"Yes, because I'm biologist," Amy replied, trying to pull his white undershirt off over his head.

"I promise to use all eight," a mumbled voice came from behind his shirt. Amy allowed herself a grin as he couldn't see her, wiping it off her face once he was freed.

Just as she pushed him back in the bed and reached for his belt, Sheldon said, "But look at you stripping me. I want to strip you."

"Another time. Lift your bottom so I can get these pants off."

Although he complied, Sheldon moaned, "But I'm so randy!"

"I think you were already randy enough with all five of your mimosas."

"They did love me back, didn't they?" He smiled as Amy pulled down the covers. Then he frowned, the exaggerated type with his lips pouted out. "Unlike my girlfriend."

"No, it's just that your girlfriend loves you enough to not take advantage of you. That mimosa is the beverage equivalent of a floozy: cheap and easy."

Sheldon curled up in a ball around his white underpants, letting Amy pull the covers up over him. Unable to resist him completely, she bent down and kissed his temple. "Raincheck?" she asked.

"Why do they call it a raincheck? It's not raining . . ." But his exhale become a soft snore. Sheldon always fell asleep instantly when he'd had too much to drink. Smiling again, Amy turned and left.

* * *

Squinting in the sunlight, Sheldon rubbed his eyes. What time was it? And why were the drapes open? He smacked his dry mouth together at the same moment he realized he wasn't wearing any pajamas, only his underwear. It all came back to him: the brunch, the mimosas with Stuart, and his appalling behavior as a result.

He sat up and ran his hand through his hair, looking at the alarm clock beside the bed. Almost three. Getting up, he rushed to use the restroom. The necessities taken care of, he grabbed his robe from the hook on the back of the door and then slowly opened it to peek out into the living room to determine how upset Amy was with him. He could smell the cleaning products in the air and he noticed the table was contracted and all the smaller items were returned to their usual places. Everything was back to normal, with the exceptions of the love seat and table, which were still were he'd placed them early this morning, probably because Amy couldn't move them by herself. Regardless, she was sitting on the sofa, her dark hair falling forward over her face as she bent over a book.

"Amy?"

She made a sudden movement, looking up and grabbing the arm of the sofa so that she could see him. "How are you feeling? Would you like some ice water for your dehydration? Some aspirin for your headache? I could close the blinds if you're photophobic."

Shaking his head, Sheldon said, "I don't have a headache. And I'm not photophobic, not once my retinal cones adapted to the afternoon sun." He paused. "But water sounds nice."

"I'll get it." Instantly, Amy jumped up to head toward the kitchen. He really didn't deserve her. He'd ruined her brunch, and now she was taking care of him for the second time in the same day. "Here, sit down with me," she said, returning with the glass.

Walking to the love seat, Sheldon sat on the end that was his not favorite; but Amy had left her book in his preferred spot and he didn't want to upset it. The water was cold, and, after the first sip, he took several long gulps, the chill soothing his parched throat. Amy smiled softly and picked back up her book, something that looked too small and short for her usual tastes.

"What are you reading?" Sheldon asked.

" _Peacock and Vine_ ," Amy said, looking up. "It's an essay about the aesthetic influences in the lives of two Victorian wallpaper and fabric designers."

"Sounds riveting." Sheldon took another drink.

"It is, actually." She paused. "Would you rather watch something?"

He shook his head. "Don't let me stop you. You can read."

Amy gave him a soft smile and tipped her head back toward her book. Sheldon sat deeper into the sofa, drinking the last of his water, and he glanced around the little apartment. It wasn't surprising to find it was already spotless again, even after their party this morning. He frowned in guilt. Amy had cleaned, first while he was drinking with Stuart and then while he was sleeping. Instead of relaxing, she had labored while he frittered away the hours he should have been assisting her. Additionally, he had been rude to her. The least he could go is give her time to read.

He turned to watch her. As usual, she was so absorbed in her book that she didn't seem to register his gaze. It reminded him of her focus when they watched French movies together. There was something charming and alluring about her serious, pensive face, her eyes moving smoothly back and forth beneath her eyelids, her dark eyelashes falling close to her cheeks, the reflection on the front of her glasses. There must have been something funny or especially insightful in the words because her lips perked up in enjoyment.

Suddenly, she seemed to feel his gaze upon her, and she swiftly turned to look at him. "Are you sure you don't want to watch anything?"

"Just you." Amy raised her eyebrows, and he continued, "I like to watch you read."

"It can't be any more interesting than watching paint dry," she said.

"That's not true. I like seeing you fascinated by something. Inquisitiveness is beautiful." She blushed at his compliment. "I'm sorry for my behavior earlier. First I was rude to Stuart and you. Then I drank too much and napped while you did all the cleaning."

Amy shrugged and lowered her book. "Apology accepted." She paused. "Thank you, Sheldon, brunch was lovely. The food was delicious. It was such a thoughtful thing to do, and I loved that you surprised me like that."

"Are we doing that again?" he asked.

Smiling, Amy shook her head softly, but then reached up to run her fingers through his hair. Sheldon's hand went up to see what she was touching.

"Sorry, your hair is still messed up from your nap," Amy explained, lowering her hand.

"Oh. I should go comb it and get dressed."

"No!" Amy put her hand out. "I like it. It's very alluring on you."

"Thank you." Sheldon shifted. "But I think maybe those liberal arts books are turning your mind a little bit."

"My mind doesn't get turned. And," she smiled mischievously, "my mind most certainly doesn't do  _anything_ just a little bit. It's all or nothing, baby."

Sheldon smiled in understanding at her little game. And it was working. "I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that six years ago."

"Maybe you should think about building that time machine."

He leaned in close and ran his fingers along the edge of her cheek. "I think you should lie down and take nap while your mind thinks up new things."

"Take one with me," Amy breathed out, inching her lips closer but not close enough to touch his. She kept them just achingly out of reach.

"I just woke up. I need to dress . . ."

"A little nudity never hurt anybody." Her fingers reached over to toy with the lapel of his robe, and he was aware of her legs moving to kick off her shoes.

"You're right. Your mind isn't a little turned, it's  _very_  turned."

"Turned on, you mean."

"Come on, let's get you to bed." Sheldon stood and put his hand out for hers, which she took and stood next to him.

"Will you go to bed with me?" Amy asked as they walked toward the bedroom.

"Oh, yes, I have things to do there."

"Like make love," she leaned over and whispered as they crossed the threshold.

"Yes. I consent to anything you want."

Amy reached over and brushed her hand along the knot of his robe. "Why do you cover your body all the time? It's so handsome."

"Okay, handsy, here we go," he hushed as he gently helped her sit on the edge of the still-unmade bed.

"Oh, some afternoon delight!"

Instead of responding, Sheldon reached up to unbutton first her blue sweater vest and then the blouse beneath it, pulling each one gently down her arms and off her body. Amy watched him, and he listened to her breath coming faster, especially when he ran his fingertip down from her neck to rest between her breasts.

"Look at you stripping me. I want to strip you," Amy exhaled softly, reaching out to start untying his robe. "Do you know the human hand has twenty-seven bones, not including the sesamoid bones, the number of which varies between people?"

"Yes, because I'm a genius." His breath increased as her fingertips grazed his bare stomach.

"I promise to use all thirty of mine, because I've have an X-ray and I know I have a sesamoid bone in the distal portion of my second metacarpal bone." And, with that, all thirty of her bones released his robe.

Sheldon swallowed and looked up her. "You make me so randy when you talk like that."

"I know." She winked, reaching around and unhooking her bra.

"Here," Sheldon touched the button on her skirt. "Lift your bottom so I can help you get this off."

"I think you just want to touch my bottom," she said, although she leaned back into the rumbled bed and complied.

"It always loves me back," he replied, lowering the zipper and grasping all the layers around her waist to pull them down.

"Just like your girlfriend."

"Yes. My girlfriend loves me enough to forgive me when I've behaved badly," Sheldon whispered, crouching down to peel the last of her tights off her feet. He stood and looked down at her, spread out naked on the sheets, smiling up at him. Amy didn't reply to his last comment, she just seemed to be studying him, her hair shining like a dark halo around her, a soft smile on her lips, only love and forgiveness in her eyes. He was astonished, not just by her beauty and trust for him, but that he understood the soft expression on her face without being told its meaning. It was like discovering another of her secrets. They looked at each other like that for several beats of his heart.

"And my boyfriend loved me enough to plan and execute a surprise brunch for me," she finally said softly. Then her smile spread into a grin. "Are you going to take off those tighty-whities or will I be forced to get a raincheck?"

"A raincheck?" Sheldon asked, even as he reached to slide down the ever-straining briefs.

"Do you know that it's called a rain check because in baseball, a ticket used to be given to the spectator providing admission at a later date instead of a monetary refund? The use dates from 1877. It was over time that it became an idiom, and the metaphorical use dates from at least 1896."

"One question," he breathed out, crawling over her body with his, running his hands up the side of her waist, lowering himself on his elbows near her beautiful hair, "did you just look that up on Wikipedia while I napped?"

She smirked up at him, running her nails down his spine in that way that always made him shiver. "Would it matter if I did?"

His pelvis slipped easy between her thighs and his lips touched easily upon hers as he whispered into them, "Not in the least."

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	7. Episode Seven: The Veracity Elasticity

**NOTE: Once more, this takes place before the tag scene, not when the episode is complete.**

* * *

One second he was asleep, sweetly slumbering away, dreaming how he'd reprogram HAL to open the pod doors whenever he wanted them open, and the next he was staring at a monster with giant glittering green eyes.

"Aaacckk!"

Sheldon reared back in bed. Oh, Amy. It was just Amy. But she was very close to him, even closer than normal, part of her head on his pillow instead of her own. Panting, he reached up and put his hand over his chest. "Why are lying so close and staring at me while I sleep? It's creepy."

Amy inched away slightly but not much. "It's not creepy. I was happy the nightmares had seemed to pass. You looked peaceful."

"I was. Thanks for ruining it."

She frowned and retreated to her own side of the bed, and Sheldon was struck by the chill that seeped into his skin now that she wasn't snuggling up against him. So, he'd ruined it. He decided to get her back.

"Amy," he licked his lips, "I've made my decision about our cohabitation. I've decided I would like it to be permanent."

Smiling softly, she said, "I know."

"How can you know? You're the first person I've said it aloud to!"

Her hand reached out and he felt her fingertips in his hair near his temple before she pulled them away. "What did we have for dinner last night?"

Furrowing his brow, Sheldon replied, "I don't understand the relevance, but, since you asked, you made eggplant parmesan, which, quite frankly, was a little garlicky for my taste."

"Noted. But who carried that eggplant into the apartment?"

"I did. You gave it to me in the hallway."

"That's when I knew."

He tried his best to tilt his head against the pillow. "How?"

Amy shifted. "You followed me. One minute you were standing the hallway, paralyzed by your decision between two equally good options, and the next you followed me into what could be our mutual home."

Sheldon considered this. He hadn't thought about his actions, holding her eggplant in his hand, but he just stepped over the threshold to be with her because it was . . . easy. And not just easy in the sense of the path of least resistance; there were still several things about Amy's bathroom habits he would resist with all his strength for the rest of his life. But it felt smooth and comfortable and comforted, which was only logical because that's how Amy made him feel. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to live with her because it already felt like the most natural thing in the world to love her. It was simple even as it was significant because it was love.

He reached out and placed his palm on her cheek, feeling her warm face. "They weren't two equally good options. One was good and the other was . . .," he shrugged, "love, I suppose."

"Oh, Sheldon."

Taking that as the sign that his decision was accepted and appreciated, he leaned forward, crossing onto her pillow this time, kissing her softly. He allowed his lips to linger there as he consulted his internal chronometer for the current time. Ah, yes, good, there was enough time to -

"Sheldon, we need to talk." Amy's hands were pressed against his chest, pushing him away.

He froze. "We just decided to live together permanently not even five minutes ago and already you have something ominous to discuss?"

"Don't deflect. I'm serious."

Sheldon sighed, backing away further, away from her warmth. "Okay, talk away. English please."

Amy took a deep breath. "I want to nullify the Coitus Non-Disclosure Agreement."

"So it is true: nothing good ever follows 'we need to talk.'"

She continued without acknowledging him, which told him this was a prepared speech and made him wonder how long she'd been formulating her plan. "Since we've been living together, it's become almost impossible not to at least allude to our intimate activities in front of our friends. I imagine it will only get worse now that our move is permanent. It doesn't seem like it could possibility be true, a couple living together and in love, not being intimate, only making love once a year. I'm shocked anyone even believes it. It's ludicrous."

"They believe it because we agreed to a Non-Disclosure Agreement. It's been my experience that if you tell your friends something is legally binding, they tend to believe you," Sheldon protested, pulling himself upright in bed.

Bracing herself on the mattress, Amy did the same. "At first, I felt like it wasn't really lying because I just had to nod and smile. Plus, I had the NDA as an excuse if asked a direct question. But then I did lie to Penny once, right before we moved in. And every week we're here . . ." She shrugged. "I want them to think we're like every other normal couple, I guess."

"Why would you want that? Normal is boring."

Amy smiled and he thought it looked a little sad. "I just meant normal about this one thing. I'm willing to leave some the details in non-disclosure territory - don't worry, I won't be talking about positions or anything like that - I just don't want to have to lie anymore about the fact that we're sexually active."

"I still don't understand why it matters. I thought we agreed that all that mattered is that we were happy with our physical encounters." Sheldon sighed. Why this insistence on sharing all their secrets? Hadn't they just learned that their friends were incapable of keeping secrets? And what about Amy? She didn't have to tell Bernadette that her apartment was done, she could have kept that a secret just to herself. Obviously even she wasn't immune to the secret-sharing. Before long, all of California would know the length of his -

"I am happy!" Amy reached out and grabbed his hand. "Don't you ever find yourself wishing you could say a little something or give a knowing laugh and yet you can't?"

"No!" He paused. "Well, okay, there was this time Howard said he was so thin because of all the sex he'd been having and I almost told him I've lost three and half pounds from the extra calories I've been burning in bed."

"It could be better in other ways, too. Maybe - maybe one of us will want to publicly woo the other sometime. And we won't have to come up with an excuse to leave. Like last week, when we left Howard and Bernadette's after arguing about the format of  _StarTalk._ "

Sheldon replayed the memory. Amy had been excited to see Neil deGrasse Tyson's interview with May-Britt Moser, especially to see her discuss a woman's role in science and whether or not it had improved since Moser's 2014 win of the Nobel Prize. But Amy had been disappointed in the format of the show. Why was Moser secluded for a private interview with Tyson that Amy found shallow, and then Tyson got to have a more in-depth conversation about the topic with two men in front of an audience?, Amy had asked. Sheldon had tried to explain that was the format the show always took, which she would know if she agreed to watch it with him on a regular basis as he'd encouraged her to do, not just when a female neuroscientist was the guest star. Their debate had gotten a bit heated and one thing led to another, and then they are rushing out in a flushed state, telling their friends they had to go home and watch the episode with Bobak Fendowsi. It was the first name that popped into Sheldon's head.

"Really, you don't think they believed that? It seems a perfectly reasonable excuse to me," Sheldon said.

Amy shook her head. "The Mars rover landed in 2012, Sheldon."

"Oh. I guess you're right."

Another smile from his girlfriend, something that he suspected was vindication. Which meant she thought she'd won this argument. Which meant, history being a brutal lesson, she probably had.

"Okay, fine." He sighed. "But the mole on my privates is between me, you, and my mother, and she hasn't seen it since I was in diapers."

Amy leaned in and kissed him this time. "I love that mole."

"Good, because I was thinking there was no reason we shouldn't add it to the monthly mole inspections now."

"I'll inspect it anytime you want." This kiss came with her arms wrapped around his neck, and he allowed himself to be folded into her warm embrace, meeting her eager tongue even as he checked his internal chronometer once again. Enough, but it might be close.

"Get undressed," he whispered. "Now."

"Yes, sir," Amy giggled, but she broke away to comply.

Quickly, they had doffed their night clothes, and Sheldon rolled between her thighs. He reached down and loved her, his own body just on the edge of where he wanted to be, watching her face, listening to her breath and her cries until, in less time than he would have expected, she started to climax. It took nothing to push into her even as her body still shivered from his hand's continued attention, and he was in time to feel her contractions of pleasure. In the midst of her cries, she opened her eyes at him and smiled, and before the last note had died away, he was thrusting deep within her. Not just thrusting, but joining her, following her, joining her, following her. He raised his hand up, running it along her body, grasping her own hand, intertwining their fingers beside her tangled morning hair. It was the most natural thing in the world, both simple and significant because it was love.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	8. Episode Eight: The Brain Bowl Incubation

It was the fingersnapping that did it. Even before the stomping and the slapping and the arm movements. Instantly, a part of Amy's nether region started thumping along to the tempo of his dance, sending pulses through her. Each slap and whip and crackle from his body and his sultry eyes jerked her desire closer to the surface, tearing it out of the place where it was hiding beneath her outrage.

The idea of seduction itself was not outrageous to her. Sheldon, in his own way, excelled at seduction. Telling her that her eyes were more dazzling than kryptonite? Yes, please. But today it had been his assumption and his clinical explicitness that had turned her off. Having one's reproductive organs and actions compared to farming techniques was not romantic. Most infuriating, though, was the way he never asked her opinion, never once used the word love.

And then what was he trying to prove with his hand cupping the sniffer of brandy like a breast? Ugh, it was like he'd asked Howard and Raj for a suggestion, filtered it through the most sexist episode of  _Mad Men_ he could find, and stirred it with wild animal pheromones. Okay, yes, there'd been the moment when he stood, putting his hand in his pocket with uncharacteristic smoothness, towering over her with those broad shoulders, the very manliness of him filling her personal space . . . and the spaces between those spaces.

_Hooooooo._ She'd had to leave immediately. So maybe it wasn't the fingersnapping after all.

Now, her pulse racing, she paced back and forth and back and forth in the narrow space between the blue love seat and the coffee table in their apartment, sighing and first crossing her arms and then uncrossing them and grumbling about what was taking him so long. Was he doing the whole dance for their neighbors?

Finally, the door swung open and Sheldon marched through, griping on his own. Again, she was halted in her tracks by his appearance; he was always attractive, but he looked especially fine with the bow tie draped rakishly around his neck, the cut of the crisp white shirt, and especially the way the plaid pants clung to the curve of his posterior. Oh, she had looked. She had looked until her thighs ached. The hair was just the icing on the already delectable looking cake. And Amy was very hungry.

"- and it seems that the ancient art of the flamenco isn't all it's cracked up to be -" he grumbled, reaching up to grab the bow tie.

"Stop!" Amy yelled, putting her hands out.

Sheldon looked up, his blue eyes blazing, his long fingers still on the tie, his dark eyebrows raised.  _Hooooo._

"Don't take it off," Amy said, softer.

"But you said it was ridiculous. Don't worry, you've made it very clear that you don't want to carry my exceptional seed in your above-average womb."

"Not the -" she waved her hand "- outfit, it's not ridiculous. The dancing was."

"I assure you my moves were based on an actual Andalusian baile -"

"I'm not doubting the credibility of your source or your form. I meant it was the publicity that was embarrassing. What was I supposed to do, rip my skirt off right in front of Leonard and Penny so you could take me on the island?"

Lowering his hand, his eyebrows dipped down in the opposite direction of where they were. "I don't understand. I was publicly wooing you. You specifically asked for that."

"What? When?" Amy crossed her arms.

"Last week, when you said you wanted to nullify the Coitus Non-Disclosure Agreement. You said, and I quote, 'maybe one of us will want to publicly woo the other sometime.'"

"Oh." She  _had_  said that. "I guess I was thinking more along the lines of flowers and chocolates."

"Flowers! Your very path was strewn with rose petals!" Sheldon pointed to the hallway, his voice rising.

"I know. I know!"

"I thought you turned me down in the lab because it wasn't romantic enough, and now you tell me roses aren't flowers and flamenco isn't seductive. Next you'll be telling me gravity isn't a force of attraction, either." He sighed deeply, and Amy could feel his frustration.

"No." Amy walked closer to him, closing the distance between them. "I understand that you're frustrated -"

"Of course I'm frustrated. My girlfriend doesn't want my body or my child!"

"Listen!" Amy swallowed as he jumped, and then she spoke more gently. "I do want your child. Just not right now. You're not listening to me, you never once asked me my opinion. That's what I'm upset about. At first, I said no because we were at work and it would have been both unprofessional and unsanitary in my lab. Plus it was all too sudden and surprising. I was hoping we'd come home and talk about it. When we did, I would have told you that I don't want to have a child right now, Sheldon. But that doesn't mean I never want to."

"We're not getting any younger," he pointed out calmly.

"I know. Believe me, I am fully aware of the ravishes of time on my eggs. I'm just saying we should discuss the timing. We just moved in together, we haven't decided if we're staying here, we haven't even moved our stuff in yet." She swallowed. "I want to be married first." She lowered her eyes. Amy didn't want it to seem that she was always wanting more than she had. While she understood that was human nature, Sheldon had come so far recently that she didn't want him to think she was dissatisfied with the status quo. And, yet, she knew there was a ring and had been for months . . .

"Oh. Yes," was all he said.

"Also," Amy said timidly, worried about where this conversation was headed, not wanting to muddy the waters with other issues for other times, "when we decide to have a baby, I want it to be because we love each other, not as some sort of science experiment. There will come a time in our child's life when it will become aware of how it came to be created, and I want to say honestly that it was made by mutual consent, that it was wanted at that time, that it was planned with care, that we eagerly awaited its arrival, that we agreed to make it with love. I want -" she took a deep breath "- I want you to want to want me as the mother of your child, not just a human incubator for your next experiment."

This time it was Sheldon who took the step between them, reaching and running his index finger down the front of her orange cardigan, stopping just above her belly button. "I'd love to see you pregnant, knowing that you're growing our beautiful baby. Please don't think otherwise," he said softly, glancing back up at her. "I apologize for my behavior. I should have asked your thoughts." He pulled his hand away and reached up for his tie yet again, as though he couldn't wait to remove it.

"Wait," Amy said softly, reaching to still his hand. "I apologize that I didn't explain my actions fully to you. I can see now that my refusal to be intimate with you might have been confusing, that I should have stayed in the lab and explained myself instead of walking away, especially as I've rarely turned you down before."

Sheldon shrugged. "I don't do well with mixed messages. I thought you wanted seduction."

"I'm sorry." Amy smiled at him. He really was so handsome. Why had she complained so much to Leonard and Penny? Why had she insulted him by saying he looked like a Rat Pack Pee Wee Herman? While the resemblance couldn't be denied, once he had started his dance, she realized she had it all wrong. "Here's a decidedly unmixed message: I love this look. You look like a brainy Antonio Banderas."

"Antonio Banderas?"

"Yes." Amy reached up and fingered the pleats in his tuxedo shirt. "Remember that dance in  _Mask of Zorro_? Like that, but with science instead of swords. I always like you better with science."

"The dance that ended like this?" Sheldon grabbed her and bent her backwards. The sensation of almost falling was arrested by his lips upon her. "Your love whips through me like glutamatergic whipping through my synapses." He reached down and pulled her leg up as he buried his nose in the placket of her blouse.

"Dios mío," Amy hushed out.

"¿Sí? Sólo porque te amo*," Sheldon said, the deep voice he had used earlier having returned, as his nose trailed the side of her face up to her ear.

"Sí."

Gently, he helped her upright, but his aching voice continued in her ear. "¿Vamos al dormitorio*?"

"Let's stay here," Amy replied, all the blood rushing from her brain having taken her Spanish with it.

"Very well." He sat on the sofa, taking her hand and pulling her down to him. Then, once more, he reached up to his tie.

"Stop trying to take that off!" Amy gently smacked his hands, causing him to look up at her. "You're leaving it on. All of it. Especially those pants." What was it about those pants? Maybe the pheromones wafting off of them were more effective than she initially realized.

"I realize my mating dance has apparently succeeded, but surely even in your aroused state you remain aware that mating cannot take place while I am wearing pants."

"Who said anything about mating?"

Sheldon pulled his head back and furrowed his brows. "I'm confused again. You don't want to mate because you don't want a child right now, then you agreed to mate with me for love, but now you're telling me we're not mating again. I'm not sure what you have in mind."

She gave him a devilish grin. "There are all sorts of things we can do that don't involve actual mating." Amy reached over for his forgotten phone on the arm of the love seat and she started the flamenco music.

"You -" Amy stood -" are going to -" she pressed his shoulders back into the sofa "- leave all those sexy clothes on -" her fingertips walked down the front on his tuxedo shirt "- while I unzip your fly -" she knelt down between his legs "- and pet you . . . with my tongue."

"Amy, you can't!" he protested.

Now on her knees, Amy looked up at him. "Why not? You did it to me, and, take it from the voice of experience, it was quite enjoyable. My neurons were flooded with glutamatergic."

"Think of the mess! And the germs!"

"It won't be any more than usual."

"Well, I - oh!"

Amy had interrupted him by tugging on the zipper to his pants, but then she stopped and looked up. "Sheldon, in all seriousness, is this okay?"

A pause, a gulp, and then he nodded. Amy gave him a smile, one that she hoped conveyed her confidence in this task despite the fact, now that she was actually unzipping his pants, she wasn't really sure if she could carry it out properly. She thought she'd have to tease what she wanted out of his underpants, but she almost jumped back when there was no teasing whatsoever needed as he sprang free. The scientist in her studied it for a moment, having never actually been this close to it before.

Looking up again, she saw Sheldon watching her. He still looked sexy, but his face had softened in something similar to concern. He spoke softly, "Amy -"'

She put a hand on his stomach, and he covered it with his own palm, squeezing slightly. It was then she realized he was just as nervous as she was, that this was another unknown bridge from them to cross together.

Taking a deep breath, she brushed her free hand along his plaid trousers, grabbing a handful of them near his hip, licked her lips and leaned forward, slowly taking him in, tasting the salt of his skin. Sealing her lips tightly around him, she raised her eyes, meeting his before they rolled up into his eyelids and his head fell back against the sofa as she drew her mouth along his length, his hand squeezing hers.

"Ay Dios, esto es mejor que montar en una noria en la luna*!" he moaned.

* * *

_*English translations:_

_Yes? Only because I love you?_

_Should we go to the bedroom?_

_Dear Lord, this is better than riding a Ferris wheel while on the moon!_

* * *

_**Muchas gracias to the ever helpful Rgbcn for her assistance with the Spanish phrases! Any errors that remain are mine alone.** _

_**As always, thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	9. Episode Nine: The Geology Elevation

**NOTE: Yet again, this takes place before the tag scene, not when the episode is complete. It seems to be a thing now . . .**

* * *

 

Sheldon rolled over in bed and whimpered. Amy, still awake, as she had been since they went to bed, listening to him roll and moan and squirm and whimper, sighed before she realized what she was doing. Squeezing her eyes shut in self-disappointment, she waited for the admonition that would surely follow.

"I don't know what you have to sigh about.  _I'm_ the one who's injured."

There it was.

"Sor -" Amy started to roll over and then stopped. "No. You know what, Sheldon, I have plenty to sigh about."

"Such as?"

Biting her tongue, Amy sat up in the dark bedroom, looking down at Sheldon's form. "Maybe listening to my boyfriend whimper like an infant all night long."

"Your  _injured_  boyfriend. I'm in serious discomfort here."

"Of your own making."

"It's not of my making. There are rocks and water fountains at fault." Sheldon put his hands down at his sides and started to pull himself upright before collapsing in yet another whimper, this one louder than the previous. "I can't even sit up straight, but you're still not sympathetic."

"Yes, you can." Amy rolled her eyes. "Sheldon, I can't be sympathetic when the cause of your injury is your own jealousy."

"You said you were jealous of Penny's physical appearance! Remember, that whole conversation about how jealousy is a normal human emotion and everyone is jealous of something?"

"Okay, fine, yes, the emotion is normal. But not acting out on it in an unhealthy manner and committing physical violence against a colleague!"

"He deserved it," Sheldon mumbled.

"No, he didn't! You're being petty for no reason. Didn't you listen to anything Stephen Hawking said? Bert's research and grant take nothing away from you. You're not in competition, you're in completely different fields of study. Just because he got the MacArthur Genius -"

"It's not the MacArthur Genius Grant, it's the MacArthur Fellowship!"

"- doesn't mean you're not a genius. There is room in this world for more than one genius. Technically, I'm a genius -"

"That's different." He was pouting now, she could hear it.

"- so are you saying that you and I cannot coexist? Or that I can't ever win grants and accolades for my work? Because, let me tell you, you'll be the one leaving if that's your attitude. And then you punched him!"

"Again, I didn't punch him! He turned around and I gave him a Captain Kirk karate chop!"

"I don't care what you call it, it was spiteful and childish and unprofessional. You're lucky he didn't report you to human resources. I am so disappointed in you and -"

"I didn't do because I'm jealous. I did it because he said you're not good enough for someone like him."

Amy pulled her head back. "What?" That couldn't be correct; Bert had said she was the coolest girl on campus.

Sheldon took a deep breath. "I  _was_  jealous of him, professionally. But it's not why I hit him. I hit him because he said he wasn't jealous of my relationship with you anymore, that he wasn't interested in you romantically anymore, that he could do better than you. Nobody talks about my girlfriend that way!"

Her hand had found its way over her heart of its own accord. "Really?" she hushed out.

"Yes, he really said that. Phhhhlllllffffttt. It just proves what an error those MacArthur people made. It doesn't take a genius to see you're the brightest star in the sky of humanity."

"You said that?" Amy batted her eyelashes.

"Not to him. It wasn't as good of a karate chop noise as hhhiiiii-yaaaaa."

"I'm - I'm the brightest star in the sky of humanity?"

"Yes! And Bert can't see that. That's what you get for looking down at all those boring rocks all the time."

"Oh!" she cried out as she flopped down beside him, putting her head on his chest.

"Owww! My hand," Sheldon said.

"Sorry!" Amy shifted so that he could pull his injured and still-wrapped hand out from under her. Then he put it around her and she felt the weight of his arm on her back.

"Stupid Bert," he mumbled.

"I don't want to talk about Bert anymore," Amy said. She gently squeezed her boyfriend. "You're the only genius I ever want."

"It's not the Genius Grant, it's the -"

"Shhh. You're the only fellow I ever want, too."

"Mmmm."

Smiling, Amy cuddled into Sheldon's chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, enjoying the muffled thump-thump of his heart through his pajamas. Maybe they would fall asleep this way, always one of her favorites.

"When you say the brightest star, do you mean the sun?" she asked after a moment of peace.

"Brighter."

"Canis Majoris as seen by a telescope?"

"Brighter. Too bright to calculate your luminosity. I'm sure I'd win the MacArthur Fellowship if I could."

Amy blushed and nuzzled in closer to his warm chest. Sheldon's bandaged hand moved along her hair, as though to stroke it, but then he must have given up as he rested it back against her shoulder. Amy took a deep, contented breath of his flannel and talcum mix.

"Are you still jealous of Penny?" he asked.

A pause as Amy considered her luminosity. "No, not anymore," she answered honestly. "Are you still jealous of Bert?"

Sheldon pressed down on her shoulder slightly. "Not anymore."

She had never thought she needed the be defended by any man for anything. And, intelligently, she still thought that. But there was something endearing about Sheldon's ill-conceived notion of chivalry. Having always considered herself an independent woman, a feminist, she was constantly surprised by how much she enjoyed his manly ways. Not just physically, but his solid emotional support especially since he had taken her back last fall. Shaking her head slightly, she pushed the memories of her mistake away.

"Are you uncomfortable?" Sheldon whispered at her movement.

"No." Amy brought her hand up from his side and reached up to gently follow the curve of his jaw, from his ear to his chin. His skin was slightly rough there, the time for his next shave approaching. Another reminder of his masculine features that seemed greater somehow, at night in their bed. "I'm sorry I can't compare you to anything in my work. Everything I work with is microscopic and you deserve something bigger with more brawn."

"Technically, I don't work with the stars." Sheldon gave a little puff out. "But viruses have brawn. We still can't defeat them, they replicate and adapt endlessly to outside stimuli and new conditions."

"Yes, but viruses are so off-putting. Why would you want to be compared to that?" Amy paused and considered her options, thinking of a particularly stubborn and baffling virus. "Do you really want to be compared to varicella zoster, for example? A rash, pustules, corneal dendrites, postherpetic neuralgia?"

"But once you get it, it's not going anywhere," Sheldon replied, and he brought his non-injured hand up to run softly against the planes of her face, his fingertips just ghosting over her skin.

"No, it's not," Amy said softly. Adjusting her head to tip her nose deep into the crevice of his neck, she gave him a tiny kiss there. Was Sheldon her shingles? She murmured, her entire body enveloped and protected by him, "It lives in your central nervous system and reactivates when conditions are favorable. Often the very first symptom is a tingling in your nerve endings, the prickling of something approaching, before the outward signs. And then the feeling spreads, liked a heated flush."

"I like the idea of living in your central nervous system," he said softly, his voice heavy and foggy as his hand had stilled.

He was almost asleep, Amy could tell. Did that mean he really liked the idea of living in her central nervous system or was it just something nonsensical one sometimes says in half-sleep? Did it really matter?

"Would you like to be my virus?" Sheldon asked, his voice more solid. So not asleep yet.

She smiled softly. "I don't know. Why?"

"Because then you could rewrite my DNA and take out the parts that make me jealous or make me do things I shouldn't."

Amy frowned. Would she change those things about Sheldon if she had the power? He wasn't perfect; goodness knew, she was well aware of that. But then, neither was she. Yes, he could be childish and petty and stubborn, but he could also be fierce and protective and strong in just the right ways for her. There had been real growth and change in him, completely on his own, and yet he had remained true to who he was. True to the man she loved.

"I wouldn't change a single strand."

Shifting, Amy stretched her face up to pepper the edge of his jaw with small kisses, feeling the almost-stubble tingle along the very edges of her nerve endings.

"I'm sorry, I'm too tired and sore," Sheldon said.

Amy stopped. Had she been trying to start something? Maybe, maybe not. Lowering her head back down into the crook of his neck, she said, "Let's just go to sleep."

There was a near-kiss on the top of her head and then silence. Taking another breath of his temperate, sleepy body, Amy smiled. She was snuggling in bed, held and loved by her fellow, her genius. He protected her and defended her, he thought she glowed brighter than any other, he wanted to be her virus, close enough live inside of her which suddenly didn't seem as odious as it initially sounded.

Maybe, Amy thought as the feeling of love and contentment and physical warmth from his body spread through her like a heated flush of joy, he already was her virus.

Then, on the very edge of sleep herself, she had one last thought.  _Sometimes cuddling is just as good as coitus._

* * *

_**Don't hate me for the lack of coitus! But . . . sometimes cuddling**_ **is** _**just as good as coitus.** _

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	10. Episode Ten: The Property Division Collision

_**When do these little scenes take place? I don't know. Somewhere in the middle of the episode? Somewhere in an alternate universe? I guess the best answer is whenever you like.** _

 

* * *

 

"How about this one? It looks just like your old one," Amy said, waving toward the brown leather love seat.

"Hmmm," Sheldon said next to her, pursing his lips. "Maybe."

But at least he moved to sit on it, which hadn't been the case most of the day. Slowly lowering himself onto the cushion, he tested his full weight with a little wiggle of his bottom that Amy found adorable. After a pause, he repeated the action, which caused Amy's spirits to lift in hope.

This was something they'd agreed on, buying a new love seat for their new apartment together. A symbolic gesture of the joining of their lives. Sheldon would have preferred a full-size sofa because of his height - Amy knew he really wanted one he was leaving behind - but it wouldn't fit. Amy would have preferred her old love seat, but even she admitted that it was in poor condition and the cushions were starting to sag. And Sheldon had already stated his opinion that Penny's love seat only matched the dumpsters behind their building.

"Here," he patted the cushion next to him, "come join me. I can't properly visualize it without your presence."

Blushing, Amy scurried over to take the seat before he changed his mind. This was the first time he'd asked her to sit, so perhaps, finally!, this was sofa was the one.

"Hmmm," Sheldon said again, lifting his fingers up to his temples and closing his eyes.

"Are you mind melding with it?" Amy asked.

"No, I'm adjusting my virtual reality goggles to include you." He didn't open his eyes.

"You're not wearing virtual reality goggles."

"I'm wearing the best pair possible, and they're powered by my imagination."

Amy rolled her eyes and smiled at the same time. It was a common occurrence when sitting by Sheldon's side.

"I'm just not sure. Something's not right," he finally said, opening his eyes.

"Sheldon!" Amy flopped her hands on her lap. "But we've been shopping all day! There aren't any more sofas to see!" The day had been long and frustrating. Amy was tired and annoyed and hungry. She didn't have the energy to spend another minute looking for a love seat that would meet Sheldon's exacting and seemingly ever-changing standards.

"I think you should curl up in your spot, like you do when we watch television in the evenings," Sheldon turned to her and said.

Amy looked at him for a second and then sighed. "Okay, fine. Anything to make a decision by dinner time."

She lifted her legs and tucked them in at her side, looking down to smooth her skirt.

"Ooouuufff!" She let out a surprised cry, her eyebrows raising as she suddenly felt Sheldon's arm around her, pulling her toward him. He only stopped when her cheek was resting against his tee shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Shhh," he whispered. "I don't want any one to see us."

"Why?" she whispered back.

"Because this." And then she felt a soft kiss on the top of her head as Sheldon ran his hand along her back.

"Sheldon?"

"Now it's right. Yes, this is the one."

Smiling, Amy tucked herself in closer to Sheldon's chest, snuggling with him right there in the middle of the furniture store.

* * *

Amy didn't like the love seat. He could tell. He watched her watching it, in her furtive way, hiding her glances, forcing her silence. She thought he didn't notice.

It was perfect in the store, for a brief while, holding her, cuddling, whispering, a strangely euphoric sensation that they were doing something naughty. But, after the salesperson broke the spell, Amy got down to business, the first order of which involved measuring the length of the love seat with the tape measure she'd brought along.

She frowned deeply. "Two inches too long."

Sheldon's heart plummeted in disappointment that sounded just like the  _zzzzzz-whaack!_ of the tape measuring recoiling, something that he normally hated and caused him to jump even when he was expecting it. He licked his lips, annoyed the salesperson was still standing there, hovering over what was clearly a private conversation. "I guess we'll keep looking."

Amy shook her head and looked back up at him. She looked tired. "No. It's not that it won't fit, it's just that it's two inches longer than our optimal length based on the room's dimensions. But two inches isn't very much. Especially when you love it so much."

Having decreed two inches wasn't too long, Amy began a fierce negotiation on price and other details, impressing Sheldon with her skills. Or not, he shrugged in the store; she'd been successfully negotiating with him for years. She made a point of asking about their return policy and made sure the 30-day-guarantee was clearly in writing before signing on the bottom line.

Perhaps because he was so concerned about what happened to the returned furniture, maybe panicking a little before he was able to obtain an addendum that stated their love seat would be brand new (Sheldon shuddered to think what other people could have been doing on  _his_  sofa while it was in their house for twenty-nine days), that he missed the point of her question.

Now he watched her, the way she turned sideways to walk past it as though there wasn't enough room, the ways she constantly rearranged herself and even put a blanket on her seat "to keep from sliding" on the new leather, and he understood that question had been the first clue she didn't like the love seat. She thought it was too large, too slippery, and he recalled she once told him that she found leather cold.

And yet she said nothing. Sheldon would have expected her to sigh and purse her lips and then, not much later, furrow her brow as she started with "You know what, Sheldon . . ." Then they would argue in the fashion to which they were accustomed, Sheldon bringing up valid points about the density of the foam and the depth of the cushions and the distance from the door while Amy shot back a lot of nonsense before he gave in and agreed to her course of action.

But, instead, she was silent on the topic, letting him in stew in the new brown leather. He didn't like it one bit. Looking around their newly crowded apartment, he realized he saw mostly his things. Or random things left behind by Penny. Amy was giving up so much for this, to live with him, here, where he felt most comfortable. There simply wasn't enough room for all their furniture, for all their collectibles, for both their computers . . . It occurred to him that the estrangement from her belongs was yet another act of love for him.

As was, almost certainly, her silence on the leather love seat.

Sheldon reached his hand out and gently brushed her hair away from her face until Amy looked up from her book.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

Waving his hand around, Sheldon replied, "For all of this. Moving here, to this smaller apartment with me. I know it was a big sacrifice."

"Not so big to me," Amy said softly.

Moved by her, her statement, her gentle smile, her eyes full of love, Sheldon leaned over to plant a soft kiss on her lips. Her didn't pull all the way from her, and she took that an invitation to return the kiss.

It happened as it so often did, the angling closer, the deepening of kisses, the soft whispers of palms against clothing first and then bare skin as barriers were peeled away.

Just after he'd accepted her presence on his lap, her readied state apparent as it touched his, Sheldon's mind cleared for a second. "Wait! We have to go to the bedroom. We can't get anything on this sofa."

Amy, her voice deep and husky, hissed into his ear, "We'll do it like this. Keep your legs together."

"Wait," he said said firmly, grasping her about the waist as she raised up to take him in. Taking his free hand, he trailed down her bottom and found the center of her, squeezing her tightly with his left arm, pinning her against his chest, as he pleasured her with his right hand.

"Please, Sheldon," she moaned into the top of his head. He leaned forward to catch her breast in his mouth and listened to her breath come ever faster.

"Please, please," she begged again into his hair.

"Come for me," he ordered hoarsely. He wasn't sure how Amy would take commends, but his plan was to pleasure her, and then, in her blissful post-orgasmic state, take her to the bedroom to complete their pleasure, thus avoiding any risk of bodily fluids on the new love seat.

"No -" she barely managed to pant, trying to lower herself now, her torso almost fighting his strong arm, "- please - I - need you. Please, Sheldon."

Her begging somewhere between pain and mewling, Sheldon didn't have the heart to deny her desires any more. Especially as they aligned so perfectly with his own. He relaxed his arm and allowed Amy to lower herself onto him, moaning himself as she took him in.

"Thank you," she murmured into his chest, as she started to shift on him, back and forth and back and forth. He lolled his head back, holding softly onto Amy's waist -

Swwwwccccchhh! There was some sort of assault on his auditory canals and Sheldon's eyes popped open when Amy stopped moving.

"Mmm, sorry," Amy said, grabbing his shoulders and inching her legs forward. Her undulations started again and he reached forward for her face, leaning in to kiss her -

Swwwwccccchhh!

"What  _is_  that?" Sheldon asked as everything stopped again.

"I'm sorry, my knees keep sliding off this cushion."

"Oh." Sheldon glanced his right. "Here, lay down on your blanket."

Normally loathe to break the action by changing positions, Sheldon saw this could be the solution his concerns. Her afghan would provide the protection the leather needed. Amy scrambled off of him and she laid down, her head landing on the armrest. Sheldon smiled at her nudity, her body open before him, and he turned and shifted to lower himself into her.

Oh, this was good. It was little tight, and he was having trouble moving as much as he'd like, but Amy beneath him, her breath ramping up again, no fears about any warranties, his body proceeding closer and closer -

**CCCRRRAAASSSHHH!**

His heart jumped to his throat and Sheldon pulled away from her, almost falling sideways off the sofa. "What was that?" He turned swiftly to see if they had forgotten to lock the door and if Leonard or Penny had just come barging in.

"It's the lamp,"Amy sat up and pointed to the white lamp that was formerly in her bedroom, now resting sideways on the floor, its shade crooked and jutting out at a funny angle. "Did you kick the table with your feet?"

Catching his breath, Sheldon nodded. "I guess so. I don't think there's room here for an end table We'll have to put that in the bedroom." He turned back to Amy. "Can you scoot up a little?"

Amy shifted upwards and laid down again, but then sat up again with a shake of her head. "It hurts my need with my heading hanging off the edge like that. Here." Suddenly she rolled over, arranging herself on all four limbs. "How about this this?"

Sheldon took a deep breath and leaned backwards. Amy wanted to do it like that? Granted, there was something about her ample peach-shaped bottom right there, displayed for him, that was hypnotizing. But it wasn't very romantic, was it? Not to mention all these interruptions and changes in positions -

"Or do you just want to call it a lost cause?" Amy's voice asked, hidden behind the curve of her buttocks before it dipped down to her -

"No," Sheldon said sharply. His body ached for the release he had been so very close to and the view only managed to amplify that. Unsure of the protocol, he stood and then rearranged himself on his knees behind her. Gripping her hip in one hand, he aligned himself with her, going slowly, unsure -

"Ohhh, Sheldon . . ."

His knee slipped off the edge of the blanket and he plunged into her.

"Ow!"

"Sorry!" He pulled back. "Sorry," he mumbled again, "I slipped."

"It's okay, just go slowly."

"Can you - I just don't have much room - can you move forward like this?"

Amy's body rearranged, her hands up on the armrest, and her creamy spine flexed forward. "Like this?"

"Maybe." Sheldon found his way into her again, and tried to lean over her, to feel her skin again his. It wasn't easy, in the small space, while also trying to manage his thrusts. He reached out grab the back of the love seat to steady himself as he flexed forward, skimming his hand up over her hip, along her waist -

Swwwwccccchhh! He gripped tightly, too tightly, he knew, as he started to feel his knees slide backwards. "Acckk!"

"Are you okay?" Amy pulled away from him, his tight grip on her waist leaving an angry red mark there. Her action, although one of concern, only managed to loosen what little hold on both the sofa and his dignity that he had, and he collapsed, barely getting his hands down to break his little tumble before his face landed on her feet.

"Here." Amy twisted off the couch, standing completely and gently pulling his shoulder up. "I'm sorry, Sheldon, we should have tried a brand new position somewhere else first."

"No, it's fine," he pouted, sitting upright on the love seat now. Yet another thing Amy was giving up for him: spontaneity in trying new sexual positions.

He watched her reach down for some of his clothes and then he took them without comment from her outstretched arms. "It's okay. We'll just cuddle and watch a movie or something," she said.

Even though he nodded, Sheldon looked down in discomfort and tried to cover the source of it with his wad of clothes. "I have to take a shower first," he said softly, keeping his eyes from meeting hers.

Instead of replying, he saw, in his peripheral vision, Amy pulling the blanket off the sofa and spreading on it the floor before she picked up and replaced the overturned lamp. Then her upturned palm was in front of him. "Sheldon?" she said softly. "We'll finish on the floor."

"But you don't want to."

"I don't not want to." She reached for his hand and tugged on it. "Let me help you."

Even though she wasn't strong enough actually pull him anywhere, it felt like she was doing just that as he lowered himself onto the floor beside her. She leaned close and kissed him softy, before she rolled on her back, tugging his shoulders with her. Just as she reached down between them, her soft fingers grasping him and guiding him, he whispered - "Not like this. You won't -"

"Shhhhhh, let yourself go," Amy whispered in his ear just as he couldn't help but moan into her ear as she enveloped him. Maybe he paused too long, because she wrapped her legs around him and pushed on his buttocks, drawing him in even further, then relaxing before flexing again. Sheldon picked up on her rhythm, fast and smooth, and he finally got his release, an almost painful spasm of pleasure, and he cried out her name in gratitude.

Panting, he relaxed his face into her shoulder, not leaving her yet even though her legs relaxed beside him. He'd never been here before. Well, yes, physically, he'd been in the exact position many times before; but never emotionally here, feeling that something that started as joy had spiraled through disaster to settle into melancholy and guilt. He could still pleasure her, of course; once or twice their timing had been off and Sheldon had touched Amy after actual coitus was complete until she found what they both wanted her to have. But, somehow, he knew that's not what she wanted right now.

Amy kept stroking his hair and intermittently kissing his forehead as he lay there, unsure of what emotion was passing between them, even as his body softened and fell away from her. She didn't speak, and he was grateful for her silence, the only sound being their now recovered breath and the faint ticking of the Spock cuckoo clock.

It was the ticking that told him they laid there for almost ten minutes before Amy shifted beneath him and he rolled off of her, staring up the living room ceiling, his emotions still a jumble although Amy's physical presence had seemed to help straighten at least some of them. He couldn't help but smile slightly when she curled up in the crook of his arm, resting her head on his chest.

"I love you," she whispered, and Sheldon squeezed her tight. Maybe it wasn't confusing at all, maybe it was just Amy giving up something else for him because he needed it, another demonstration of her sacrifices and love. He could make at the least he physical sacrifice up to her later, teasing her slowly and deliciously with his tongue -

"You know what, Sheldon," Amy interrupted his planning, "that love seat -"

"- it's not the one. It's got to go," Sheldon finished for her.

* * *

**_Thank you for your reviews!_ **


	11. Episode Eleven: The Birthday Synchronicity

Three hundred sixty-five days.

365 days. 52 weeks. 525,960 minutes. 31,557,600 seconds. 365 days, touching each other.

From the first moment in the coffee shop, he looked twice, his eyes turning against his will, as she scintillated there on the edge of his life. There is the glint of light off her hair, the muddy recesses it holds. Her eyes are not pure green, although they seem to flash emerald at times. There are flecks of brown and gold, a kaleidoscope of patterns bathing her irises. Her face is shaped like a heart, a pointy little chin and the bump in her nose. She does this thing where she pushes her eyebrows together, and a little wrinkle is forming there. Time will make it permeant, he knows, but he enjoys running his thumb along it nonetheless. There is an opalescent purity to her skin, once he peels off her nightgown, the faint glow of skin that is usually covered and does not often see the sun. The rise and the fall of her chest, the endless curves of her abdomen and body. He especially loves the effect of gravity of her breasts, her hardened bead-like nipples splaying outwards when she is on her back, pointing down toward him, begging him to catch them in his mouth, when she is above him. The curves extend and expand over her hips and bottom, and these, these!, he loves most of all. There are handfuls of her flesh there, to be gathered and held when he needs it most. She is hot and silky and it never ceases to surprise how it feels to run his fingertips over her, among her, in her, the smell of her lingering there long after the touching has stopped. It surprised him at first, the faint whistling sound, a signal of her pleasure, her very core seeming to overheat and vaporize before him. She smiles and stiffens and releases and he allows himself - all of himself, his fears, his dreams, but mostly his love - to soar in space with her. He knows, in that pure moment, that he is loved without regret, for all his imperfections. He is her microcosm and she is his macrocosm. There is her body, there is his body, and now they are one.

365 days, 365 words for love.

She did not see him until he was burned into her retinas, into her heart; he had become the solar retinopathy of her life. There is the arch of his eyebrow, the way it curves beneath his bangs. A universe is contained there. His eyes are as pure as the ocean, deep and bottomless. An oval perfection that is his face, the face of model, symmetrical and even. Sometimes he bites his bottom lip, sometimes he licks it. She likes to sooth the worry from his lip with kisses. His skin is marked with moles and freckles, once she removes his pajamas, constellations of his time on Earth. Shoulders have never been so broad as his, a reminder that he is strong enough to carry her anywhere she needs him. His biceps are a mystery to her, at least where they come from, but she loves watching his muscles move beneath his skin, the way these joints flex over her, the expanse of space to nip at when she is above him. So lean his frame, his body one lengthy tendon from top to bottom. There's a patch of spare chest hair, so incongruent with the hair on his legs, and she likes to run her fingers through it. His hips are points, jutting out underneath his trim waist and next to his taut backside. There is a ridge there, along his pelvis, to be pressed and skirted to give her what she needs most. He is hot and soft and it never ceases to surprise her how it feels to run her palm over him, along him, around him, the memory of hot satin over steel lingering long after the touching has stopped. The moans and guttural sounds he makes, a bellow, a growl of exhalation, something primal breaking free from his attempts at control. He gasps and thrusts once more and releases and she allows herself - all of herself, her fears, her dreams, but mostly her love - to dive into the mysteries unseen with him. She knows, in that moment, that she is loved without regret, for all her imperfections. There is his body, there is her body, and now they are one.

365 days, 365 words for love.

* * *

**_Not what you expected, eh? Thank you in advance for your reviews!_ **


	12. Episode Twelve:  The Holiday Summation

There wasn't any time after the faint tap on the door for Sheldon to reply before the hinges creaked and Amy voice called softly to him, "Sheldon? Are you awake?"

Turning and sitting upright in bed, Sheldon whispered into the sliver of bright light interrupted by Amy's face, "Yes, but girls aren't allowed in my bedroom."

He did not think he whispered it too quietly or that Amy's hearing was subpar, but Amy proceeded into his bedroom - a girl! in her robe and nightgown! - nonetheless. She shut the door gently behind her, and he lost all sense as his eyes tried to adapt to the darkness once more. He heard her approaching, and, for a moment, he thought she was going to lower the covers on his childhood bed and crawl in next to him. Instead, his vision returned just in time to see her silhouette curl up on top of the comforter next to him.

"Girls aren't allowed in my bedroom," he repeated. Amy knew that, he'd explained the sleeping arrangements to her before they left, and she'd agreed to stay put in Missy's old bedroom. But this was just like Amy: flaunting the rules, smirking her way through small acts of disobedience, thinking she knew best.

"I wanted to see how your ear was," she replied instead.

"Fine," Sheldon muttered. It wasn't true. His earlobe hurt and stung, but not as much as his pride. It wasn't just that Amy wasn't technically allowed in his bedroom, it was that a part of him was angry with her and didn't want her there. And another part of him felt guilty for feeling that way. "There's nothing you can do about it, anyway," he added. "My ear, I mean. It just has to heal."

"Do you think the concern for infection has passed? I could put more alcohol on it, if you like," she offered, the deep timbre of her voice accentuated by the lower volume of her speech.

"No, it's fine." That wasn't true, either. He'd already researched the initial symptoms of gangrene on his phone. He looked down, angry and ashamed of meeting her eyes, even in the dark. The pale skin of her feet caught the moonlight breaking through the blind, and Sheldon couldn't help but stare at them. They looked so naked and fragile.

Amy took a deep breath. "Sheldon, I wanted to say -"

"Shelly, who are you talking to?"

For the second time in less than five minutes, a female in his life didn't wait for his answer, didn't wait for his permission before opening his bedroom door. Privacy was apparently an illusion in this house.

"Amy is that you?" his mother snapped from the door way. "I thought I heard footsteps."

"Yes." His girlfriend didn't make any effort to move off his bed or even sound contrite, despite the fact she was breaking a known and agreed-to rule.

"Perhaps Shelly didn't make the rules clear before you arrived. No matter what types of fornicating you two choose to engage in in your own home, that is between you and Jesus Christ. But, under my roof, you will not share a bedroom until you are married."

Sheldon rolled his eyes in the dark.

"I saw that, Sheldon Lee Cooper!"

"We're not fornicating. I am merely inquiring into the healing process of Sheldon's new piercing," Amy protested. Sheldon turned his head toward her in amazement. Was she really going to argue with his mother? That was not a small act of disobedience as he had painfully learned as a child.

"You can inquire using those mobile telephones that seemed to be glued to your hands nowadays." Then his mother snapped and pointed her finger straight out into the hallway.

"Then surely you can appreciate the more heartfelt approach of my personal inquiry. Besides, it is Sheldon's bedroom and he is my boyfriend; I believe I have the right to speak to him wherever and however I see fit."

He knew his mouth dropped. What  _was_ Amy thinking?

"Sheldon will speak to you in the morning. At church; we have Bible study every morning of Advent."

"Sheldon doesn't like church and doesn't want to attend."

"Sheldon doesn't get to decide that."

"Sheldon has decided it already."

"Stop it!" Sheldon yelled. "Sheldon is right here and perfectly capable of speaking for himself! I am not a child, even though you -" he pointed his finger accusingly at his mother "- insist on treating me like I still am! I am not an unlovable brat! And you -" he swung the angry phalange toward Amy - "smother me all the time with your unilateral decision-making and your worry!"

"Shelly!"

"Sheldon, I - I"

His mother looked horrified and angry, but Amy's face! She was stricken, cut to the very quick, he could tell. He flinched at the sight and lowered his hand along with his eyes. "Go away, both of you."

He rolled away from them so that he would not see them leave, could not see Amy's vulnerable feet anymore, but he felt her weight lift off his bed. It seemed like that weight settled somewhere in his chest.

* * *

_Scratch, scratch, scratch. Maamee._

Amy rolled over in Missy's old twin bed and murmured in the early morning half-light that filtered through the pink curtains. Why was she dreaming about mice in the room? At least she was dreaming, after tossing and turning most of the night, worried about what had gone wrong with Sheldon and how she could fix it.

_Scratch, scratch, scratch. Maamee._

Squinting without her glasses on, Amy sat up and looked around. That sounded less like a dream.

_Scratch, scratch, scratch._ "Maamee?" Except this time it sounded very much like someone mumbling her name.

"Sheldon?" she whispered yelled into the room.

The door slowly opened and she could make out the fuzzy plaid outline of someone entering her room, taking the time to silently shut the door behind him before he turned and walked toward the bed.

"Did I wake you?" he asked, looking down at her.

Amy shook her head, stretching for her glasses but Sheldon reached out and grabbed them first, handing them to her. "Thanks. Not really." After she slid her glasses on, she looked up at him again, seeing him properly. "What are you doing in here? I'm sure that if girls aren't allowed in your room, then boys aren't allowed in mine."

Sheldon looked around at the room, seeming to take in the pink walls and frilly canopied bed from Missy's early childhood overlaid with posters of the late nineties television and country music stars of her adolescence. "Why would anyone want to come in here?"

Before Amy could answer, he surprised her by lifting up the edge of her blankets and turning to slide in next to her. Flummoxed by the move, Amy shifted on the narrow bed to make room for him, although they barely fit side-by-side.

"I came to apologize," he said, once he was sitting next to her, his back against the headboard. "I shouldn't have said such angry things to you last night, in my room."

"Thank you." Amy looked own at her hands and she took a deep breath. "But did you mean it? What you said? Do I smother you?"

"No," he said with long exhale. "But my mother does sometimes. Texas does sometimes. This - this house does sometimes."

She looked back up and smiled softly.

"But -" Amy's smile fell and she swallowed at the force in his voice as he continued "- sometimes you make decisions for both of us without asking my opinion first, and that does bother me. I wish you wouldn't."

"I just thought - I thought that if your mother already knew, if she heard the news from me ahead of time, that then, when you told her, she'd be calmer because she would have had time to get used the idea. That you'd be calmer and not overreact." It did not seem like the time to point out that the last part of her plan had failed.

"Is that also why you didn't tell me your apartment was repaired weeks before I had to find out from my friends? You think I overreact?" Sheldon asked, his blue eyes boring into hers.

"No! I -" Amy looked down at her hands again, knotting them in worry. "I didn't want the experiment to end yet."

"I didn't want it to end, either, you know. Not from that very first morning when you argued with me over my scientific methods. All you had to do was ask." Sheldon's hand creep over hers, stilling them.

"I'm sorry. You're correct. I shouldn't have told your mother without your permission first," she whispered.

"And you should have listened to the reasons for my objections."

Amy nodded. "And I should have listed to the reasons for your objections." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I've ruined your Christmas."

"You haven't ruined Christmas," he said softly. "There's still plenty of time for my siblings to do that."

Despite herself, Amy chuckled as she looked back up. "You're not an unlovable brat, either."

"I know. If only every girl in the world were as lucky as you."

"Don't I know it?" Amy braved a slight lean forward, and Sheldon rewarded her by crossing the greater distance to softly kiss her lips. "And that thing I said about your sock drawer -"

"What about it? It really _is_ a masterstroke of space management and color progression."

Chuckling, Amy said, "That's true. But I should have told you everything I love about you. You're not weird."

"I'm not perfect, either, and I do appreciate that you're around to help balance me. I should have told you that." Sheldon shrugged. "Plus, I don't think my family realizes that what they see is genius, not crazy." He shivered and lifted the blankets. "Here, scoot down, I'm cold."

Amy thought about pointing out that if his very presence in her room was against the rules then surely lying down, pressed together by the necessity of the narrow bed, would be a flagrant crime. But, instead, she lowered herself next to her boyfriend and let him wrap his arms around her.

"I've missed this, sleeping next to you," he murmured. Before Amy could even expire a sound of delight, he quickly added, "Plus I'm afraid we'll both roll off this bed if we don't stick together like Legos."

Stretching, Amy planted a kiss on his cheek. "I've missed sleeping next to you, too. You're very warm."

"Warm?" Sheldon pulled back slightly to look down at her. "Are you cold? How is that possible? Sleeping next to you is like lying next to the terrestrial equator."

Shrugging as much as she could in Sheldon's embrace, she said, "Well, you feel warm to me and it's one of the things I love about you."

"You should add that to the list. Methodical hosiery sorter and homeothermic."

She kissed his chin. "And funny."

"I was serious."

The other cheek. "Honest." The tip of his nose. "Brave."

"Weird," Sheldon said softly.

"Hey," Amy said sharply, reaching up to caress his cheek, "you're exactly my kind of weird."

His eyes softened and he leaned forward. Amy closed her eyes and melted into his lips, his kiss gentle before it deepened. She let him roll over her, and the combination of his thumbs circling her nipples through her nightgown and his arousal pressing against her caused her to moan loudly into his mouth.

Amy brought her hand down to the top button of his pajama top, but that only resulted in his rolling away sharply. "Sheldon?"

"We can't do this in here."

She frowned and turned on her side to look at him. "Oh, right. Your mother's rules. You shouldn't even be in here."

"No -" Sheldon lifted the covers, sat up, and swung his legs out in one swift motion "- I meant this room is creepy. Come to my room. Plus my bed is bigger."

"Bed?" Amy's mouth went dry as she sat up. "Are you - are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Well, come on." He snapped his fingers softly. "You've always liked a bad boy."

"Should we put the earring back in?"

"Not a chance."

Smothering a laugh, Amy hopped out of bed and raced around to join him as he opened the door. He took her hand as they stepped out in the hallway, walking the short distance to his room just beyond the bathroom.

"What do you two think you're doing out here in your pajamas this early in the morning?"

Amy halted at the sound of Mary Cooper's voice behind them. Where did she come from? Sliding her eye up and over to gage Sheldon's reaction, she felt him give her hand a squeeze.

"We're going to my bedroom to fornicate," he replied to his mother, even though neither of them turned around.

She couldn't help it, Amy gasped along with Mary behind them. It was one thing to point out to her future-mother-in-law that she wasn't in Sheldon's room to do anything inappropriate and it was another thing entirely to tell her that's exactly why they were going there.

"Sheldon Lee Cooper, do you want me to wash your mouth out with soap?"

Amy tried to pull her hand away, but Sheldon gripped it tight before he turned to look at his mother over his shoulder. "I apologize for my words, but not my actions. I am a grown man, this is the woman I love regardless of how weird it may seem to you, and I intend to express my love for her physically. Need I remind you that I once caught you fornicating on your sofa?"

Turning as he spoke, Amy watched as Mary's mouth slowly opened ever wider as he spoke. Then she said, "So you're really not going to Bible study, are you?"

"No."

"Well."

Silence filled the hallway as the three of them stood frozen at a standstill, Mary standing in her bedroom door at one end, her robe held tightly around her, Sheldon right in front of his door, gripping Amy's hand in defiance. Amy only moved her eyes back and forth between them, wondering who would win this stand-off. Should she break the stale-mate and turn Sheldon down just to keep the peace with his mother? But she'd never seen him stand so tall in front of his mother before, and, no doubt about it, it was hot.

Finally, Mary spoke. "I'll pray for you while I'm there. And I'm not making you breakfast!" Then she stepped back into her bedroom and reached for the door.

"Fine! You couldn't make enough for how ravenous we'll be after all that physical exertion, anyway!" Sheldon yelled at the closing door.

Amy raised her eyebrows. Had Mary just given in? Had Sheldon won? Just before she turned back, running into Sheldon's bedroom with him, attacking the buttons on his pajama top even as he fumbled to lock the door behind them, that Amy also wondered . . . was it her imagination or had Mary Cooper been smiling?

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	13. Episode Thirteen: The Romance Recalibration

"Thank you for staying the night, Sheldon. I know it wasn't your original plan," Amy said as she unlocked the door to the new room at the spa and wheeled her suitcase in behind her. "Did you find everything you needed at the gift shop downstairs?"

"No." Sheldon clutched the little plastic bag. "I can't believe I'm being forced to wear boxer shorts with green bamboo on them. And they don't even sell plaid pajamas! What is this world coming to?"

"I'm sorry," Amy said, looking around the room that was almost a duplicate of the one she'd been in earlier with Penny, except there was only one king size bed instead of the two smaller ones. "I'd take you home, but I didn't drive. Penny did."

"I know. We're at the mercy of our friends. Next, we'll be left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives."

"Sheldon!" Amy admonished. "Don't say that. Think positive! I feel bad for them. I thought you were excited about trying to help them work through their differences by writing them a Relationship Agreement."

"I am. When I've picked up the pieces before, I was successful in putting a few back where I wanted them, making them both better people. And just think about how much a bathroom schedule will improve their lives!" He paused. "Although, where would Penny live if it doesn't work this time?"

Frowning, Amy looked around the room, spotting the mini-fridge. Sheldon would be pleased. "Let's not ruin this romantic weekend by thinking negatively."

"Is this a romantic weekend?" Sheldon asked, sitting down on the bench at the end of the bed.

"We're at a spa together. And you said you would miss me," Amy cooed, leaning over him for a kiss. Then she reached for one of the fluffy, clean robes folded on the end of the bed next to him. "I'm going to the bathroom to put this on now."

Sheldon gave her a tiny peck. "Why are you putting on a bathrobe now?"

"We're at a spa. It's what you do! There's one here for you, too, so we'll match." Amy stood and marched to the bathroom. She quickly put on the fresh robe, removing and folding all of her clothes first this time, reasoning that if she wanted a romantic weekend with her boyfriend then fewer articles of clothing seemed the most expedient way to make that happen.

But, when she returned, he was still sitting fully clothed on the end of the bed, using the remote control to flip channels on the television.

"I thought you were putting on your robe, too."

He turned to look at her. "Why would I?"

"I told you, it's what you do at a spa. Everyone wears their spa robe for the treatments. And," Amy wrapped her arms around herself, "it's the softest robe I've ever felt." She stepped closer to him. "Feel it."

His eyebrows dipped. "Why? I'm still not wearing it."

"Oh, just feel it and you might change your mind."

"But -"

"Feel. It!"

Sheldon jumped slightly but he reached out to run his hand down her arm. "Oh, it  _does_  feel like the belly fur of a thousand fluffy kittens." His face softened.

"I told you so." But he still didn't make a move to get off the bench, so Amy sat down next him, reaching for the spa menu arranged behind them. "Let's decide what to do."

"Do? They have the SyFy network. It seems like that plus the Relationship Agreement ought to be enough to occupy my time."

Amy rolled her eyes. "We're at one of the premiere spa resorts in southern California, we should take advantage of it. Penny and I were scheduled for a couple's massage, but I'm not sure what to do now that Leonard's here. Plus we've spent time getting our own room, so it's too late for that appointment now anyway. Should we book another one, for you and me?"

"Why would I want someone other than you to give me a massage? I'm sure it would be subpar."

Smiling, Amy looked back down at the menu. "Pore-Tightening Facial then? I could use that."

"Have you ever seen my pores?"

She looked up, screwing up her face as she considered the question. "Well, no."

"Exactly my point! They're so small you'd need an electron microscope."

"Okay. Couples manicure and pedicure?"

"Pphhllllff. We're not Raj and Cinnamon."

Amy silently conceded that the idea had lost its appeal once Raj told them about the "Doggy and Dudes" treatment he'd done with his dog. "Clay Wrap? It says it helps to detoxify your system and reduce water retention."

"Nine days too early."

"What?" Amy looked over the top of the brochure at him.

"In nine days, your menstrual cycle will cause you to gain approximately four pounds of water weight. You'll plump up like my sourdough bread starter." He gave her a grin that would have been adorable under other circumstances.

"Um, okay." She looked back at the brochure. "Body Scrub?"

"Sounds painful."

"Mineral bath? It's supposed to dilate the blood vessels."

"Which is exactly how you get an embolism in your brain. No thank you."

"You could get something waxed."

He turned his head and gave her a withering look.

"Okay, then," Amy said, folding the brochure closed, "what do  _you_  want to do? Just watch the SyFy channel in our room?"

Sheldon turned his head more. "We could watch it from there." He jerked his head.

Amy twisted to look behind her. "Sitting in bed? Hmmmm." She considered this option.

"We could order room service." A smile spread as she turned back in surprise. Was Sheldon suggesting eating in bed? She never thought that would happen. "Provided they have something without quinoa and kale. And I'm not drinking more cucumber water," he added quickly.

"We could order room service and watch the Hallmark channel."

"We could order room service and watch the 2014 version of  _Godzilla_  from pay-per-view while we find and drink those little bottles of alcohol."

How far could she push this? "We order room service, watch the 2005 version of  _King Kong_ , drink those little bottles of alcohol, and you put on the robe. And nothing else."

His eyes meet hers and Amy crossed her arms and seated her jaw more tightly.

"Final offer: we order room service, watch the 2014 version of  _Godzilla,_  drink those little bottles of alcohol, and I put the robe on over the boxer shorts."

_Don't smile, don't smile, don't smile._ "Deal."

* * *

_I just had the weirdest dream. Amy and I were at a spa and I was wearing bamboo boxer shorts and eating sweet potato fries in bed and then Amy was trying to convince me King Kong was more complex than Godzilla because he was a primate and then we were standing on the bed fighting like King Kong versus Godzilla and then we were laughing and Amy's lips tasted like salt . . ._

Sheldon opened his eyes and promptly shut them again as the sharp rays of the sun pierced his retinas. Running his hand down his face, he opened them more slowly and took in the room around him. It wasn't a dream. There, beside the bed, was the disheveled room service cart complete with a half-consumed chocolate malt and two uneaten fries. He looked at the bedside table and groaned. How much did they drink? And why? He opened and shut his mouth several times in a row, trying to ignore the feel of his dry tongue and fuzzy teeth. And the need to urinate was acute.

Bracing his arms, he tried to lift up only to discover Amy's head of dark hair on his stomach, her face on top of the waistband to the those infernal boxers which apparently wouldn't stay closed, her nose practically touching his morning - "Amy, wake up," he said, shaking her shoulder.

She moaned and wiggled her head, which didn't help any of his current predicaments in the slightest.

"Come on, Amy, it's morning," he tried again.

He saw her eyelids flutter open and then he could see the edges of a smile. "Well, good morning, Dr. Cooper. I see you're up and at 'em."

"I have to use the restroom. And my breath probably smells like that sulphur bath you wanted us to take," he replied.

A groan from his girlfriend and she sat up slowly, tightening her robe as she did so. What happened to his robe? And why weren't they under the blankets? He glanced back over at the mini-bottles of alcohol. "Amy, did we . . .?"

Amy opened her robe just under her belt and glanced down. "Nope, clean as a whistle down there."

"Amy!"

She put her hand over his. "No, Sheldon, we didn't have sex. I would never take advantage of you in an inebriated state."

Sheldon nodded softly and then frowned. "Just how inebriated was I?"

"Oh," his girlfriend shrugged, "we split three mini-bottles of vodka so you were about three sheets to the wind."

"Are you currently inebriated? What sheets? What wind?"

She smiled and waved her hand. "Hurry up in the bathroom; I have to go, too."

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Sheldon rushed to the restroom, first reliving himself, then drinking a glass of water before putting toothpaste on the complimentary toothbrush.

"Hurry up, Sheldon!" Amy's fist sounded on the door. "I really have to pee!"

He stretched out his arm to open the door. "I won't look," he said just before he popped the toothbrush in his mouth. True to his word, he squeezed his eyes shut and hummed to himself while brushing, in order to drown out the sounds of Amy. Finally, he heard the toilet flush and he spit and rinsed his mouth out quickly before Amy came over to wash her hands.

"Look at this shower head," he said with appreciation, looking through the glass door into the tan-tiled space. "And is this a pressure and temperature selector?"

"I think so, try it. I've always wanted to try a rain head, and that one is huge!"

"I'll let you know what it's like," Sheldon offered after adjusting the water pressure and temperature and sliding out of his boxers to step inside. "What are these pebbles on the floor?"

"Oh, I've read about his. The texture is supposed to both massage your feet and provide the gripe you need to avoid slipping." Sheldon considered this, analyzing the unusual sensation on the soles of his feet before stepping directly under the stream of water. It was perfect, both the temperature and the water pressure. Because of his height, he was unaccustomed to being completely immersed in the tiny streams of water, and he found it invigorating. Was this what it felt like to be Leonard in the shower? Throwing his head back, he closed his eyes -

"Acck!" He shouted, his eyes popping open as something brushed his arm.

"Sorry, I was trying not to frighten you," Amy said as she should there right in front in him, naked and wet.

"What are you doing in here?"

"As you pointed out, this shower head is large enough for both of us." Sheldon studied her for a moment. "Oh, come on, Sheldon, we can't do this at home. Not without one of us out in the cold." She stepped up closer. "Besides, you were going to show me how Godzilla showers." She tilted her head toward the tiny bottles of shampoo on a tile shelf. " _And_ you forgot your washcloth. Maybe I could soap you up with it."

Her green eyes sparkled under her heavy dark lashes, with little droplets of water forming on them. She pushed her wet hair back from her face, and Sheldon couldn't help but watch the rivets of waters that trailed down from her shoulders, meeting between her breasts . . .

"Very well," he agreed hoarsely.

Even better than watching all those streams of water was the smile she gave him. He swallowed as he watched her wrap her cloth-covered hand around the bar of soap, guiding it up and down on the bar as she made the washcloth sudsy. Her hand passed over his chest in small, even circles as Amy worked methodically left to right, top to bottom. His stomach shied away from her movement.

"Ticklish? I wouldn't think Godzilla would be ticklish," Amy whispered coyly. "And here I was thinking you were enjoying it."

"I am." He put his hand over hers, stilling it. "Amy, I . . ."

"Yes?" She glanced up, more alluring droplets on her eyelashes.

"I - I - don't want to think about Godzilla anymore." He bent down and kissed her softly. "Do you think it's safe?"

"We'll never know how good these pebbles are if we don't run an experiment," she answered.

"If you put it that way . . ." He glanced around the shower, wiping the excess water away from his eyes. "How should we test our initial approach? Our nether regions don't exactly line up when we're standing."

"Will this work?" And reached over for the small teak stool in the corner of the shower and brought it closer, wiggling it and shifting it to stabilize it on the uneven floor. The rivets of water running down her back and between the cheeks of her bottom were - he swallowed again. She put on leg up on it and her hands on her hips. "How about this?"

"Hmm, maybe." Sheldon pursed his lips. "What about if you turn around?"

Amy nodded and complied, allowing Sheldon to wrap his arms around her waist. "Yes, this might work. Give me the washcloth."

After she'd passed over the cloth she'd been gripping, Sheldon reached forward more to clean her chest the same way she'd washed his, slowly and methodically, although even he would have admitted he took extra time over her wet bosom, tipping his face down to nibble on her earlobe as her breath came faster. "Oh, Sheldon," she finally moaned.

"Yes?" he whispered.

"Please."

She helped him, shifting and aligning herself and then he was able to slide into her. Wrapping his arms around her again, he lowered the washcloth, down to where he most wanted to touch her, bracing their bodies with his other hand on her hip. Amy's hands splayed wide on the tile in front of her and he watched them as he loved her in the shower and kissed her dew-dropped shoulders until her fingers curled in with pleasure and she exhaled his name in a long, continuous roar of ecstasy.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	14. Episode Fourteen: The Emotion Detection Automation

_**Inspiration is a funny thing. One line of this is something my dear friend and beta said to me (used with her permission, of course!). But most of it was inspired by Tim Gunn on last week's episode of** _ **Project Runway Junior** _**, if you'd believe it!** _

 

* * *

 

Silence was not new to apartment 4B. Sheldon and Amy had spent many a soft hour in companionable quiet, each working on their own hobby or task, sometimes even sitting side-by-side but always grateful for both the other's presence and their understanding of the need for peace. Even though there were both mundane conversations about their plans or chores and deep discussions centered on their beliefs and theories, these quiet golden moments were still cherished for the depth of contentment and understanding they contained.

But this evening, over beef loaf, the silence was not so soft or golden. Sheldon had left the bedroom to sit at the table and partake in the meal Amy made for him, but he had obviously not left his emotions behind.

Eating her salad, Amy pondered what else to say, having thought that enough had been said in the bedroom. While Sheldon had been responsive and almost happy after Leonard and Penny came to apologize, now she could feel his brain churning unhappily across the table again.

Finally, Amy put her fork down and said quietly, "Sheldon, do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" he asked.

"I couldn't help but notice you seem preoccupied by something. Are you still upset about your machine?"

Sheldon sighed, but he put down his own fork. "No, not really."

Amy shifted in her seat. "Would you care to share what you are upset about?"

"What if I carry the machine to the train store tomorrow and no one takes me seriously?"

She bit of the immediate inclination to ask who did take an adult male in in a train store seriously. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you've seen it. It looks like something out of  _Star Trek_."

"Oh." Amy nodded. "I'll admit I thought it looked like a project made by a child out of leftover parts and spray-painted in the garage when I saw it, too. But I would imagine there will be a few children at the train store, so maybe they'll think it looks realistic."

Sheldon furrowed his eyebrows. "What are you talking about? I meant that  _Star Trek_ and locomotives don't mix. Sadly, there is no Venn diagram containing those too. Oh! Imagine riding a train in the holodeck!"

He smiled, that cute little smile he got when he was envisioning something, and Amy couldn't help but smile back. That seemed to have improved his mood.

"Listen, Sheldon," Amy got up and rounded the table to sit next to him, "I was serious when I said you don't have use the machine if you don't want to. So, don't take it to the store."

"I know." He looked down for a second, and the smile was lost.

"Spock didn't need an emotion machine," Amy said suddenly.

He looked up. "Or Data, even at first when he didn't understand verbal and facial cues very well. Although Data was a machine, so that's a little confusing."

"Sheldon, you don't need one either," she said softly, and then Amy brought both of her hands up to hold his face, resting the first two fingers of each hand on his temples and her thumbs near his chin. "Your thoughts to my thoughts, your mind to my mind."

His blue eyes opened wider. "Are you attempting a mind meld with me?"

Amy smiled softly. "Maybe."

"Well, then, you're doing it wrong." His words stung, but his fingers came to rest over hers, teasing the two fingers on his temple apart. Amy relaxed her hands and let Sheldon rearrange her fingers so that her index fingers were on his cheeks and her middle fingers on temples. Her thumbs remained where they were. Once her hands were arranged, he said, softer, "And it's 'My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts.'"

"Oh."

Sheldon shut his eyes and then nodded ever so slightly, careful not to misplace her fingers. Taking this as his consent to proceed, Amy said, "My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts."

She paused, unsure of what to say next. Obviously, she didn't really believe in the telepathy of Vulcan mind melds and she doubted that Sheldon did either. She had merely meant this as a demonstration that there was no machine necessary in her relationship with Sheldon, that they already understood each other on a level that no instrument could detect. Her love for him was too great and too complex to be analyzed by a mere box that looked like a bad 1960s television prop.

"You love me," Sheldon said suddenly, almost as though it surprised him.

"I do. So much." She knew it was a coincidence but it still pleased her that her method was working. Of course, she had just told him that she loved him in the bedroom, not all that long ago.

"You want me to be happy and you thought the machine would help make me happy, that it would make my social interactions with others easier."

"Yes," she confessed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have encouraged you to try it. It's only resulted in turmoil."

"Although your hypothesis may have been flawed and proven incorrect, your scientific motive cannot be disputed. It was valid investigation to undertake," Sheldon replied. Amy smiled at how seriously he was taking this mind meld, that he still hadn't opened his eyes.

"You love me, too. Enough to try my suggestions."

"I do," Sheldon agreed.

Just as Amy decide to pull her hands away, to give up this little game they were playing, perhaps to suggest a quiet activity such as cuddling and watching a movie together, Sheldon added, "You enjoy making love with me."

"That was never in doubt," Amy said quickly.

"You like it when I brush your hair way from your face and my fingertips graze your ear."

Just the thought gave her an involuntary shudder. "I do." She bit her lip. "You like it I when run my hands over your stomach, although it makes you ticklish."

"You like it when I hold your breast in my hand."

"You like the sound I make when I orgasm." Sheldon's eyes popped open, even has his face remained pressed against her fingertips. "No, you don't? You think it's too loud?"

"I thought you didn't know," he hushed. "I do love it. Is this mind meld really working?"

"I know because I can see it on your face, you have this little smile afterwards, like . . ." Amy shrugged. "I don't know. You look so proud and peaceful and happy all at once. I open my eyes after feeling such a physical high, and you are there, that look giving me an emotional high."

Suddenly, Sheldon leaned forward, breaking her fingers away from their mind meld and his lips landed with force on her. Amy squeaked in surprise but then returned the kiss as he drew his hand along her jaw, brushing back her hair, pulling her closer. Once there was no more air left, he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. "You understand me."

"I think I always have."

"I wanted the machine to understand my friends and other people as well as you understand me. The easiest part of my life is living with you, having you understand me."

"Oh, Sheldon."

"But now I know no one can understand me the way I understand you or you understand me. Because they don't love me the way you do."

Amy tilted her head back to look into his eyes. "That was so romantic."

"Do I understand you well enough to think this would be an appropriate time to suggest we go to the bedroom?"

"You do."

* * *

"You like it when I unbutton your cardigan," he whispered as released the last button and helped her slide it down her shoulders.

"You like it when I put hand in your pants before I've removed them," she said, taking him in her hand.

"You like the way I look at you once your completely naked," he said as his eyes raked up and down her now nude form.

"You do like when I take my glasses off in the bedroom," she whispered as she stretched out to put them on the nightstand.

"Otherwise they hurt my cheeks!" Sheldon interjected and she chuckled.

"You like it when I make you laugh when we're intimate," he explained, reaching for her waist.

"You like it when I'm on top. You like to see me," Amy said as she moved over him and lowered herself around him.

"You always smile at the sound I make when you do that," he hushed.

"That seems too obvious," Amy said as he leaned forward, setting the pace.

"Okay, then, you like to be in control."

"You think I'm sexy when I'm in control."

"You like when I do this," Sheldon said, lowering his hands to cup her bottom.

"I think you like it more."

"This. You love this." Sheldon pulled her closer, kissing her deeply even as his hands helped to press her thighs deeper into him.

"So do you."

"Oh, God, this!" Amy cried at the ultimate moment, and she looked down just in time to see the little smile of pride and peace and joy, and then Sheldon gasped as his neck arched and his eyes squeezed shut.

Amy collapsed against him, resting her forehead against his. Sheldon's hand came up gently, brushing along her jaw until his fingers came to rest on her temple and her cheek and her chin.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	15. Episode Fifteen: The Locomotion Reverberation

_**As promised (on Instagram) an extra-long Valentine's Day chapter!** _

* * *

 

"This is completely wrong!" Sheldon said for approximately the eightieth time.

Amy stepped in behind him and glanced around the Victorian bunk car. It was almost all knotty wood and sharp corners. The only source of light was lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The narrow bunks held thin ticking-striped mattresses with what appeared to be a flat pillow and a single wool blanket folded at the end of each. She worried she'd get a splinter or bed bugs just standing there.

"Sheldon, I told you, it's fine," she lied, trying to make her voice sound bright. "At least no one else is here, so we don't have to share it." It was a good thing, too, because the shower was in the corner of the room with no wall around it, just a flimsy white curtain.

"But we were supposed to have the caboose!" he whined, also for the eightieth time.

"No, it's not what we planned, but it's clean." She gave him a smile in hopes of soothing him. "It could be fun. It will make the whole experience more real for you, just like you're part of a real train crew."

"No, it won't. I'm the only part of this crew! There are all these bunks and no one else wanted to be this authentic. Why?"

"I can't imagine," Amy sighed, heaving her suitcase on the tiny bunk in the spare space. She was pleasantly surprised to find the train also had traditional first class sleeping compartments, but the package Sheldon had was for the original experience that didn't include such a modern space.

"Plus it's not the caboose!" He turned toward her sharply. "I thought you wanted the caboose, too."

"I did - I do. But I understand that mix-ups happen. My only concern was for our privacy, and this will be private." When they had first checked in for their reservation, they had been informed that it was not for the caboose suite, after all. It was all Amy could do to prevent a toddler-level melt down from Sheldon, which had distracted her from her own disappointment. She knew she needed to set a good example; one of them needed to be mature about the situation.

But Amy desperately wanted the caboose, she had vivid fantasies of it. As a young teenager, she'd watched  _Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman_  and Michaela and Sully's wedding night in the caboose of a train was seared with all its PG-level intensity into her memory. Now, as a sexually experienced woman, there was a whole different rating level she had in mind.

Alas, it was not to be. Because, she had to admit as she looked around the bunk car, she didn't see any possible way she and her tall boyfriend would squeeze onto one bed together. She was rapidly coming to regret all her maturity and calmness; this room looked like a prison cell.

"I wanted to sleep next to you," Sheldon said softly and Amy smiled at him.

"Don't let it ruin your adventure. Think of all the piston thingies and the coal and the bandana."

"Bandana?" Sheldon asked.

"Won't you get to wear one?" she queried back.

"I don't think so."

Amy frowned. "Oh."

There was a soft knock upon the door and they turned to see a gentleman in an old-fashioned uniform. "Hello! I'm Richard and I'll be your bunk car attendant. I'll help you with anything you need." He glanced at Sheldon. "I understand you're enrolled in our engineer program."

"Yes." Sheldon nodded.

"Then I'm sure you've been told you'll need to take the early breakfast slot, at 7:00 a.m. All meals are in the dining room, with the other passengers who are just along for the ride." He turned toward Amy. "Will you be eating then or later?"

"We'll eat together," Amy said. "Thank y -"

"What do you know about the caboose?" Sheldon interrupted her.

"Ah, it's lovely, sir. An entire private car complete a queen size bed. Not to mention the private balcony on the very rear of the train."

"Not its specifications but about its status on this trip."

"It's not my assignment, but I understand it's occupied for the duration."

Amy tried to give Sheldon a warning stare, but he wouldn't even look at her. "Yes, but by whom?"

"I couldn't tell you the names even if I knew them, sir, but I do know it's for a senior citizen couple from Maine. They flew all the way here just to take the train. Isn't that something?"

"Yes, indeed, thank you so much for your help," Amy said in a rush before Sheldon could ask more inappropriate questions.

Richard tipped his hat and said, "You're welcome, miss. I'll be back after dinner to see if you need anything."

The porter left, closing the door behind him. "Sheldon!" Amy said firmly, putting her hand on her hips. "Let it go. You'll ruin this experience for both of us if you keep it up."

"What's ruining this trip is that having the caboose wasted on those two old fogies."

"Sheldon!"

"They're senior citizens! Why do they need to sleep next to each other anymore? Just in case they need to reapply each other's Aspercream in the middle of the night?" He crossed his arms and shook his head.

"Won't you still want to sleep next to me when we're senior citizens? You just said that's why you wanted the caboose."

Sheldon frowned and turned his head away. "Maybe," he mumbled.

"How about this? The tour of the train starts in a few minutes, let's go take it. It will get your mind off the room mix-up," Amy suggested, softer.

"How much of a tour can it be? All the cars on a train are in a straight line."

"Okay, then. You can stay here and pout alone, and I'll go."

Amy had taken two steps out of the car before she heard Sheldon call, "Wait for me!"

* * *

Sheldon was correct when he pointed out a tour seemed like an odd thing to do on a train as all the cars were in a row. Even though Amy had suggested the activity more as a distraction for her boyfriend, she was pleased and surprised at how much she enjoyed it. They were shown rooms not normally seen during day-to-day operations such as the kitchen, and she even got to see some of the spaces that Sheldon would be working in. The only disappointment was that they weren't as warm as she hoped . . .

But, although Sheldon had been well-behaved on the tour and during their dinner that followed, he was sullen. Amy had tried everything to break him out of his cycle, from asking him specifics about the train to trying to engage him in scientific debate over dinner, and finally she had resorted to ordering a brownie in hopes of helping him recollect the memory of another happy train journey.

Now, however, Sheldon's half of brownie not eaten and her boyfriend pouting as he looked at the scenery passing by the window, Amy had to admit to herself that this might be a very long journey, indeed. At least she'd brought several books with which to occupy herself. And surely, she couldn't help but reason, after his first day as a train engineer his excitement would return. The dining car had emptied as she nursed the brownie, hoping for a change, but it was clear it wasn't coming tonight. They needed to leave, as the servers were seating the next set of guests. Not that Amy was eager to do so. The dining car was wonderful, plush and beautiful, unlike that grim bunk car they had to sleep in.

"Should we -"

There was a sudden and profound change in Sheldon's face. The pouting vanished and a new determination formed in its place. "Did you hear that?"

Before Amy could even ask what "that" was, Sheldon popped up from the table. Amy had to twist in her chair to watch him as he exited the dining car at almost a full run. She sat, glued to her seat, confused for a few moments until their waiter came to ask if she was finished. Mumbling something incoherent, she got up and left herself.

Sheldon wasn't in the bunk car when she returned, although she noticed Richard had prepped the bunk beds with crisp linens and soft blankets for the night. She hadn't expected that; maybe someone had taken pity on them because of the room confusion. Exhausted from the long day, Amy considered putting on her nightgown and crawling into one of the beds, but she elected instead to read for a while in case she needed to try and seek out Sheldon later.

Taking her small portable reading light out of her suitcase and curling up on the bottom bunk, she allowed herself to get lost in the pages of the cozy mystery she had brought along. With the fresh linens and the motion of the train, it actually wasn't too bad. Just as she finishing a chapter, the door to the car opened with a jerk, making her jump and drop her book.

"Oh, good!, you're not in bed!" Sheldon called, his face positively beaming.

"Where have you been? And why are you suddenly in such a good mood?" Amy asked, struggling to place her bookmark and get out of the small space at the same time.

"I have the best news ever! The caboose is ours! Hurry up, the Moores are coming!"

"The Moores?" Amy stood, her brow deeply furrowed.

"The couple we're trading with."

"Sheldon Cooper! You did not track down the couple in the caboose and force them to trade with us using some horrible tactic, did you? That is completely unacceptable!" Furious, that's what she was. "Of all the underhanded things you could have done to ruin my week, I can't believe you'd want to ruin someone else's week, too!"

He stepped back and his eyes widened. "I didn't force them to trade. It wasn't underhanded at all. I just rationally explained the situation to them and they agreed. We shook on it."

Amy's eyebrows dipped. "I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem likely. Why would a couple who had reserved the caboose suddenly decide to switch for this - this prison cell at the request of a stranger? How did you discover who they were? And, if they're senior citizens, how will one of them get up on the top bunk anyway?"

Sheldon tilted his. "You do realize those last two questions are unrelated, right?"

"Answer me!"

"Okay, okay, calm down. I thought you'd be pleased." He took a deep breath. "As we were finishing dessert, I saw a couple with gray hair walk by and one of them said 'Bar Harbor.' It seemed likely they were the couple with the caboose, so I followed them. In answer to your other question, despite their age, they seemed quite spry to me."

He paused, as though that was the entirely of the story. "Keep talking," Amy said.

There was a deep sigh, but then he continued, "I introduced myself and explained why I was here, why I wanted the caboose, and they agreed. It was actually very simple." Amy crossed her arms and shot him a dirty look over the top of her glasses. "Fine. I told them that you took me on a train trip once and I ruined it and I needed to make it up to you. Are you happy now?"

Amy's arms fell down in surprise. "You ruined a train trip for me once?"

Sheldon looked away and nodded.

"But you kissed me. We started kissing on a regular basis after that."

"But it wasn't romantic," he said softly.

"It was to me. It was romantic in all the right ways."

"I wanted to make it up to you. You wanted romance that night, and I wanted to give you all the romance now."

Just then, Richard stepped into the still-open door to the car with a loud and obvious cough. "Pardon me. Are you ready to move? I'm happy to help carry anything."

Sheldon looked over at Amy, his eyes questioning. He was letting her make the choice. She smiled and nodded.

* * *

It was better than she imagined. The caboose was amazing, like all of her _Dr. Quinn_  fantasies come to life. There was a huge four-poster bed in the middle, one of those that had a small set of stairs to get into it, swathed in red curtains that matched the curtains on the window. The floor was a plush carpet, and there was a Victorian settee and even an antique vanity.

"Oh, Sheldon, come look at this!" she called, opening the door to the back of the car, stepping out on to the small balcony. It was loud out here, the sounds of the locomotive chugging away even from the opposite end of the train, but it was an amazing view of the scenery disappearing into the orange sunset.

"See, and you were willing to give all this up without a fight!" Sheldon shouted over the noise and came to stand next to her.

Amy threw her head back and laughed. He was correct. She needed to enjoy this, to love everything this beautiful space had to offer, to spend what time she could with him, soaking up this atmosphere and letting him be as romantic as he wanted to.

Her laughter was startled to a halt when Sheldon's long arms went around her from behind. "I'm so happy," he said into her ear. "Thank you so much for sharing this with me."

Rotating in his embrace, Amy stretched up on her tip-toes to kiss him. "I'm happy, too."

Sheldon wrapped his arms tighter around her and he pulled her closer, gently opening her mouth with his tongue. His leg pressed between her knees and she opened them slightly, and she moaned into the kiss as she felt his arousal press against her. Pulling back, Amy looked into his burning eyes and said, "Do you want to make love?"

"Am I in the caboose of a locomotive?"

She chuckled and took his hand, walking back into the caboose proper, letting Sheldon shut the door and drown out some but not all of the noise behind them. Almost instantly, he reached for her again, kissing her as he walked her backwards until her bottom hit the bed behind her, stopping them. His lips traveled in a frenzied pace down her neck as his fingers worked on her buttons of her cardigan at her waist, Amy's hand working just as frantically from the top down. Sheldon helped her pull the sleeves down with a whipping noise. Her blouse went just as quickly, and Sheldon pulled back to lift off his tee shirts. Amy took advantage of the break in action to unhook her bra and she flung it sideways so that it landed on the pillows.

Grasping her sides, Sheldon lifted her up on the tall bed in one swift and surprising move. Hoooooo! Her engineer was such a manly man! He reached down to unzip her skirt and she leaned back, lifting her bottom as he slid it, along with her panties, down her legs. Amy let her shoes drop to the floor in advance of his actions.

"Do you want - Ohhhh!"

Amy never got the question out as Sheldon crawled up onto the bed next to her before lowering his head between her thighs. She fell back onto the comforter and tried not to writhe too much from Sheldon's ministrations. Apparently she was unsuccessful, because his palms came up to press her hips still. Lolling her head in pleasure, Amy looked at the window at the world rolling by, the sky meeting the cacti. The chugging sound of the train seemed to be speeding up as the view because blurry and -

"Sheldon!" she cried out, clawing and gripping at the red bed cover.

He was already above her when she opened her eyes, holding himself over her. Amy smiled up at him and whispered, "That was romantic."

"How about this?" Sheldon asked, reaching down between them. Amy's back arched as he entered her. Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist, drawing him in closer.

Clickety-clack went the train, and Sheldon joined the rhythm. In he thrusted with the clack, leaving her on the click, and Amy found herself meeting him, rising up on the clack, relaxing on the clicks, and, to her own surprise, she broke open again, riding another wave of pleasure just as Sheldon found his own, their cries joined by the prolonged whistle of the train.

* * *

_I am the engineer! I am running the locomotive! Here I am! All aboard!_

There was already a smile on his face even before Sheldon awoke. He sat up in bed, still grinning, and stretched out his arms.

He glanced over at Amy and his grin settled into a softer smile. She was naked, as they had made love again before falling asleep, something slow and tender and gentle in contrast to their earlier enthusiasm. One leg was outside the covers for some reason, and he followed its pale angles and curves up from her foot to the ample flesh of her hip. The dark red of the comforter set it off very nicely, and it was almost enough to make him stay in bed. But she was sound asleep, her hair tangled around face, her mouth open and giving off puffs of air, and, as usual, a little puddle of drool on her pillow. She looked so peaceful he couldn't wake her.

Sheldon shook his head and got up to go to the shower compartment in the next car. He dressed carefully, pulling on the overalls he'd brought for the occasion. After he'd left, he found their porter to inform that Amy wouldn't be at the seven o'clock breakfast after all.

Five hours later, Sheldon walked back toward the caboose from the very front of the train, tired, hungry, hot, a little dirty but mostly jubilant. All of his wishes were coming true, and he couldn't wait to sit down at lunch with Amy and tell her all about it. First, though, he intended to wrap his arms around her, dip her backwards, and give her a kiss she'd never forget -

"There you are! Finally!" Amy jerked open the door even before he'd get his key fully in the lock.

"Um, hello?" There was nothing jubilant at all about her face. Her demeanor was so at odds with his current emotional state he felt discombobulated, as thought it was far more than the train that was swaying beneath them. He stepped inside and jumped when Amy slammed the door behind him. "Amy, what's happening?"

"What's happening?" she thundered and then crossed her arms. Oh, this wasn't good. "What's happening is that I had breakfast with the Moores. You know, the couple that just kindly and easily gave up the caboose without a second thought, almost as if they didn't want in the first place?"

Sheldon opened his mouth.

"Oh! wait!" He shut it again. "That's odd, because it's their fiftieth wedding anniversary and the caboose was their gift to each other, it's been their lifelong dream! I'm going to guess this isn't news to you."

"I didn't know!" he protested. "Mr. Moore agreed to the swap and we even shook hands on it! A deal's a deal!"

"And yet you don't seem surprised. You had to know something!"

He gulped and looked down at his feet, as he considered a thousand options, mapping them in his mind, before coming to the conclusion there was no option other than honesty. "They said it was a special occasion, but I didn't ask any further questions."

"A special occasion! You didn't ask because you didn't want to feel guilty. Plausible deniability, am I right?"

The tiniest nod he could manage.

"You as good as stole this experience from them, do you know that? I am so disappointed in you. Now you've ruined this trip for both them and for us." She wasn't yelling any more, but somehow that made it worse.

"But, Amy -" he started, looking up at her.

"Go away. I'm not eating lunch with you." She turned her back to him and stepped over to look out the window.

* * *

His appetite had vanished along with his joy, but, as Amy had kicked Sheldon out, he really had nowhere to go other than the dining car. His plan was to sit alone, to watch the world sliding by, to listen to the calming lull of the wheels, to be soothed by the rocking motion of the train.

Instead, the dining car was full and there were no empty tables. Before he could turn away, he saw Mr. Moore waving him over. "Sheldon! Come join me!"

Amy's words still ringing in his ears, Sheldon thought he should accept the invitation or risk making their trip even more ruinous than it already was. He sat down, briefly wondering why Mr. Moore was eating alone. Perhaps there was some sort of harpy virus loose on the train, affecting the minds of all the female passengers.

"Glad you're here," Mr. Moore said. "I had to eat alone. Evelyn's got a headache. I left her alone to sleep it off. Poor thing, she was really enjoying the trip so far."

Sheldon frowned. Not only was his harpy virus theory untrue, it was unkind. But Mr. Moore asked a few questions about his engineer program and Sheldon answered them, relieved they weren't talking about the women in their lives anymore. Until -

"How are you and your lady friend enjoying the caboose?" Mr. Moore asked.

"It has proven satisfactory for our coital experiences," Sheldon said simply.

Mr. Moore's eyebrows shoot up and then he threw his head back in a loud guffaw. Finally, he said, "I remember what it was like to be so young. Good for you!"

Alarmed at his reaction, Sheldon tilted his head. He did not think that reporting that the caboose had successfully fulfilled its promise was humorous.

Mr. Moore took a drink of his water and said, "As a matter of fact, my wife and I had breakfast with Amy."

"She mentioned it."

"That's quite a gal you've got yourself there."

Sheldon nodded. "Unfortunately, at times she is quite hysterical and irrational," he grumbled.

"Oh, what's this? Trouble in paradise? You just said the caboose was - what was it? - satisfactory?"

"It was last night. But now Amy is angry with me about it." Sheldon looked down. "She thinks I stole the caboose from you and no matter that I told her we shook on it, she doesn't believe me." He looked up quickly. "Oh, I should send you to talk some sense into her!"

Chuckling, Mr. Moore shook his head. "Trust me, I wouldn't be welcome. Her anger is a good sign, it means she cares about other people. She's a good woman, I think."

"She is," Sheldon whispered and then took a deep breath. "She says that it's your fiftieth wedding anniversary and the caboose was your gift to each other."

"It's true." Mr. Moore nodded.

"Then why did you give it to me? Now Amy thinks it's all my fault!"

"I may not be a young man, but I remember the gleam I saw in your eyes. As for the missus, well, she thought your story about making up for the last train trip was sweet."

"But what do I do? How do I convince Amy I didn't steal anything from you?"

"Son," Mr. Moore stretched his arm over the narrow table to put up his hand on Sheldon's shoulder and Sheldon resisted the urge to shake it off, "will you let me give you some advice about women?"

"Very well."

"As you know, I've been married for fifty years. We got married on a fluke, just before I left for Vietnam. We moved a few times, we raised three kids, we worked, we retired, we laughed, we fought, we made up."

"And your point is?" Sheldon asked.

"Well, it's not my point, but some patience on your part wouldn't be remiss." Mr. Moore looked at him pointedly out of the corner of his eye. "But my point is that it doesn't matter which room you're sleeping in, as long as you're sleeping next to each other."

"That doesn't help at all! Those bunks are minuscule!" Sheldon protested.

Moore chuckled and took another drink. "Oh, trust me, where there's a will and an extra dose of glucosamine chondroitin, there's a way."

With that, Moore got up, slapped Sheldon's back one more time, and left the dining car. When the waiter came to ask him what he wanted to eat, Sheldon asked where he could find the porter Richard.

* * *

Smoothing his tie, Sheldon glanced around the new compartment to make sure everything was in order. He needn't have worried; Richard had managed to outdo himself.

"I'm so sorry about this electrical issue, miss," he heard Richard's voice down the hall. "I hope you'll accept a first-class sleeping compartment to make up for the inconvenience."

"It's quite alright. I think that caboose suite wasn't really for us, after all. I just feel bad you've had to help us move our luggage so many times." Sheldon smiled softly. Mr. Moore was correct; Amy genuinely cared about others.

"Oh, it's been my pleasure, miss," Richard said as he came into view and he winked at Sheldon, moving aside and extending his arm so that Amy could enter.

She stopped in the door way, clutching her re-packed suitcase. "Sheldon? What's all of this?"

He watched her take in the space. Richard had confirmed there was an empty private compartment, and he'd even agreed to lie to Amy about some non-existent problem with the caboose in order to get her to come to it. Sheldon had skipped his afternoon in the engine to help him make arrangements. It seemed that everyone on board were hopeless romantics at heart and it took less effort that Sheldon had thought.

The table between the two seats was covered in a white cloth from the dining car, a large bouquet had been assembled from all the carnations meant to adorn those tables, and Sheldon had even procured a lantern from the engine, turned as low as possible, to create some mood lighting. A bottle of wine was chilling in a bucket and their steaks were resting on the white china plates.

"This is an apology," Sheldon said simply as Richard silently closed the door behind Amy. "You're correct. I didn't ask what the Moores' celebration was because I didn't want to know. I was only selfishly thinking of myself."

"This is sweet, and I accept your apology to me, but that doesn't make it up to the Moores," Amy said.

"Don't worry. Richard should be helping them move into the caboose right now and setting up their own private dinner there, just like this one," Sheldon explained.

Realization dawned on her face that the electrical issue had all been a ruse all along, and she murmured, "Oh, Sheldon."

"Amy, will you stay in this compartment with me? Will you eat this dinner with me? Now it seems I have not just one but several ruined meals on a train to make up to you."

"Oh course I will!" She launched herself at him, and he barely had time to brace himself before her face was buried in his chest.

* * *

"Amy?" she heard Sheldon whisper.

"Yes? I'm awake." Amy looked up, to the bottom of Sheldon's bunk floating above her face. The delicious dinner had been eaten and taken away, and Richard had transformed their little compartment into their new sleeping space. Yes, it was still bunk beds, but they were larger, easily the size of twin beds, and certainly more plush than the bunk car had been.

The top of his head poked over the edge, his short dark hair falling slightly with gravity, his hands gripping the side of his bunk. She could see how blue his eyes were as they had not yet shut the blind on the window yet, because Sheldon enjoyed seeing the lights of the current city go swishing by.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

Amy nodded her head against her pillow. "Yes. Thank you for dinner. And for setting things right. I like this compartment."

His half head bobbed and shifted. "It doesn't matter which room we're sleeping in, as long as we're sleeping next to each other."

"That was lovely." Amy reached her arm up, hoping to brush his knuckles, but his hand came down and clasped hers. She smiled up at him, their arms stretched between them in a sort vertical embrace.

"Mr. Moore told me that."

"Then he is a wise man."

"I love you, Amy."

"I love you, too."

Sheldon squeezed her hand and then said, "But we're not sleeping next to each other."

"Is that your way of asking if you could come down here? I don't know if you'll fit."

"I've been told that if there's a will, there's a way. I also asked Mr. Moore for a glucosamine chondroitin tablet to improve my joint flexibility."

Amy raised her eyebrows and then chuckled. "Come on."

He let go of her hand and swung his long frame off the top bunk, landing on the floor with a soft thud. Amy scooted in the bed as close to the window as she could and lifted the blankets up for him. After Sheldon slid in next to her, he reached and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"How is it?" Amy asked. "Do you have enough room?"

"Beside you? There's always enough for me."

* * *

_**We all owe a HUGE thank you to my dear friend and beta Melissa who, even before the episode aired, sent me the plot idea for this week's chapter.** _

_**And, as always, thank you to all of your for your reviews!** _


	16. Episode Sixteen: The Allowance Evaporation

 

_"_ _No, you didn't. But keep in mind, I felt extremely important."_

He had the audacity to say it with a wink!

Amy sighed heavily and reached up to rub the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "Sheldon . . ."

"Besides, you really can't be angry about that. We had a wonderful time! Remember the caboose?"

Lowering her hand, Amy studied his eager face for a couple of seconds. "Okay. Maybe I'll concede that. But really? Your driver's license? After I taught you how to drive? You think that's something that should be kept private?"

"If I don't want anyone to know, then yes!" Sheldon protested.

Amy sighed again, but much softer. Most of her anger was gone with Sheldon's apology, although not all of her disappointment. She still didn't understand all of his excuses. "Okay. But I still have questions and I think I deserve to know the answers," she said calmly. "What about Kripke? I can't believe you told him; you don't even like him."

"I had to! He made me!"

"I doubt he was holding your head down into a flushing toilet."

"No, but he was bragging that he had just solved an equation, like he did something amazing. So, I told him that was easy, I'd solved an equation while simultaneously depositing semen into your vagina."

Amy's eyebrows went up and she opened and shut her mouth twice. There really didn't seem to be a response for that.

"Listen," Sheldon reached for hand, "I now realize there is the possibility I screwed this up -"

"Oh, you definitely did."

" - but I told everyone last year, after we first made love. That's why everyone thinks it's only once a year. I was just so . . . overwhelmed and surprised by how much I enjoyed it, how much I love being with you, seeing you like that, sharing that with you . . ." He looked down and shrugged.

"Oh, Sheldon." Amy squeezed his hand. "I love sharing that with you, too. But that's what I mean, it should be shared between the two of us because we're the only two people who are here, in our bedroom and in our zone of privacy."

"Don't forget Dr. Fink," Sheldon looked up and said.

"Um, yeah."

"Amy, can I ask  _you_ something?"

"Of course."

"I don't understand why you asked to nullify the Coitus Non-Disclosure Agreement and now you're getting mad at me for telling people. You could have already set the record straight by now," he pointed out.

"I guess it's what I said. It's embarrassing. I don't like being the subject of campus-wide gossip." She paused. "Can I ask you, why did you say we barely had a love life? Do you really think that?"

"No! I meant as far as everyone at Caltech knows! Amy, I really am sorry. It wasn't my intent to hurt you or make you angry."

"I know. And I  _do_  forgive you." Amy smiled and started to get up to put her laptop away but Sheldon tugged her back down.

"Will you set the record straight now, go tell everyone? I just want to know what to expect."

"Oh." Amy hadn't really thought about it. "I don't know. I don't think so. I wanted to be able to talk about it more with Penny and Bernadette, but it hasn't really come up, honestly. Mostly we talk about Halley and recapturing our youth and complain about Raj."

Sheldon nodded as though these were perfectly logical things to say. "So, just for arguments sake, what other things would you consider private and thus non-sharable? I've made a preliminary list -" he waved behind him to the abandoned white board "- but I want your input, too."

"Are you saying there are other rumors I should concerned about?"

"No! I mean, I don't think so . . ."

Amy rolled her eyes slightly. "Okay. As you should be able to infer from this conversation, I don't want  _any_ details about our intimate life spread around. Like, well, you know, what we like in the bedroom and stuff or the details of our actions."

"Positions and genitalia? Yes, I put it on the list." Sheldon paused and took a deep breath. "Does that apply to everything in the bedroom? Like the fact that you drool on your pillow ever single night and it doesn't seem to bother you in the least to be sleeping in your own spittle?"

Narrowing her eyes, Amy said, "Do you want everyone to know that you talk in your sleep?"

"No! Those ramblings might be top secret!"

"Exactly."

"Very well. Nothing that happens in the bed even if nonsexual in nature. Deal." He braced his hands on the mattress.

"Also! -" Amy put a hand out to stop him as he started to get up, and he looked sharply back at her "- I agree we should extend the bubble of privacy to the bathroom. Although that was on your list, wasn't it? You mentioned it."

"Yes, but I'm dubious that it's a valid topic. I only put it on there for you."

"Why is that?"

"Because nothing happens in the bathroom that isn't a normal human bodily function," Sheldon explained. "It's also very important for one's gastrointestinal and urological health to monitor those actions on a daily basis. Any sudden or significant changes could be signs of illness."

"That's true, but that's not my point. My point is that no one wants to hear about that except your doctor -"

"Which is why I added him!"

"- and all the little boys that laugh at fart jokes," Amy said pointedly. "Besides," she smiled to soften her words, "you also sing in the shower and that's not a normal human bodily function."

"Yes it is, otherwise there wouldn't be all those jokes and commercials about it."

"What I mean is that you probably don't want me telling everyone about that."

"Why not? I have a lovely singing voice."

"Really, even when you sing 'I'm Too Sexy' while you get dressed in the morning?"

"That's not a song. It's a statement of fact!" Sheldon crossed his arms. "And you - you inspect your nose pore strips under the microscope after you use them!"

"I'm a scientist!" Amy shot back. "I need to make sure I'm not losing too much epidermis along with the trichostasis spinulosa, so that I don't develop post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation." She crossed her own arms. "So maybe I should go tell everyone at work that you still recite 'This Little Piggy' when you cut your toenails!"

"That's how my mom did it!" He reared back.

Letting out a breath, Amy uncrossed her arms. "Listen, I'm not trying to start another argument. I think your zones of privacy prove that you already understand my point. When you live with someone, when you're intimate with someone, you learn a lot about them and their previously private habits, even if they aren't about sex or defecation. And some of those habits might seem unusual to others. Or embarrassing. It's just about privacy. I think if you're in doubt, you should ask me first and vice versa."

Sheldon relaxed beside her. "Yes, you're right. Oh! the things I could tell you about Leonard!"

"But you won't," Amy said with warning in her voice.

"No, I won't." Sheldon shook his head. He reached over and took her hand again. "I like it when I sing in the shower and you sing along while you blow dry your hair."

"You can hear that?" Amy asked, raising her eyebrows. She thought she'd been quiet and that the sound of the blow dryer would have drowned out what little noise she made.

Sheldon smiled. "I was thinking we should learn  _The Suite_  from the  _Victoria_  soundtrack. The acoustics in the bathroom in combination with both of our voices would give it an appropriate sense of grandeur, I think."

"Oh, Sheldon, that's so sweet." Amy leaned forward and kissed him softly.

"Can I come to bed now?" Sheldon asked. "I'll keep what we do here very, very private."

Amy chuckled and nodded.

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	17. Episode Seventeen: The Comic-Con Conundrum

The truth was that it wasn't the first time it happened. Or the last. And yet, every single time, Amy had the same reaction. Until the last time.

* * *

"Amy, you're not ready!"

Amy jumped slightly and looked up from her pipette to her tall boyfriend standing in the doorway of her lab. "Hello, Sheldon. Is it time already?"

"Of course it is or I wouldn't be here. You know I'm as punctual as Old Faithful," he said, stepping closer.

Nodding, Amy stood and put her lab instruments down before starting to strip off her gloves. "It's just been a busy day and I lost track of time. Honestly, I'm not even sure I want to see this movie anymore. I don't think I'm in the mood."

"But, Amy, you insisted you wanted to see it on opening weekend, it's why we bought tickets to the 5:40 show; all the other times were sold out!" Sheldon protested, following her as she moved toward the sink.

"I know. But I didn't get lunch today and there's not enough time to eat before the movie and I don't even know if I can wait for popcorn. I'm already hangry," she explained as she washed her lab equipment.

"Hangry?"

"An amalgamation of hungry and angry; when one is so hungry they're in a foul mood. I stole it from Penny. Anyway, it means I'm not going to be good company, and, I'm sorry, there's not much you can do to improve my mood."

Sheldon pressed up close to her from behind as she put soap on her hands, thrusting his pelvis against her bottom, and Amy raised her head in surprise. There was something firm in Sheldon's pants.

"Really? I think I know just the thing to improve your mood. It's in my pants," he leaned over and hushed into her ear. "It's very tasty and filling."

"Tasty and filling?" Amy whispered back. "Mmm, Sheldon, is there enough time?"

"Here." He pulled back and Amy turned around to watch him reach into his pocket and remove a Luna bar. He held it out to her. "If you eat fast. It's the kind with blueberries that you love."

* * *

"You were standing there when I left," Amy said, walking toward the kitchen with the bag of groceries. "Are you stuck?"

"Maybe," Sheldon murmured from where he stood in front of the whiteboard, his lips pursed above the marker he was holding close to his chin.

"Come help me put these away. It may help you to get your mind off it," Amy replied. She lifted her purse off her shoulder and set it on the island next to the bag.

"Very well," she heard Sheldon say and then he came to help her. They worked silently and quickly, putting the food away.

"I bought this new barbecue chicken salad at the deli. I thought we could try it for dinner," Amy suggested as she put the container, the last item, in the refrigerator.

Sheldon sighed. "You know it worries me to eat things from a deli. You can't see the kitchen behind that wall."

"You can't see the kitchen at most restaurants and yet you still eat there," Amy pointed out.

"That's true, but your food is cooked to order, not lumped in a bowl under glass for hours."

Amy shook her head slightly. "So, that's a no? I bought those tortilla chips you especially love to have with it. And you know you don't get dessert unless you clean your plate first."

"I guess I can try it."

She gave a small smile and walked over to the whiteboard still standing the middle of the living room. Looking over the numbers, she thought she understood his conundrum. "This is for your military project?"

"Oh, I should have covered that!" Sheldon called coming over to stand next to her.

Amy pointed to one of the calculations. "I feel like the problem is right there. Maybe if you . . . No, that wouldn't work . . . It's like you need something . . ."

Suddenly, her back was warmed by Sheldon's presence, his long body touching all along hers. "I think I have what you need right here in my pants," he leaned over to purr in her ears, thrusting against her quickly until she felt the cylindrical, hard form there.

She started to turn around as she asked, "Was it doing the math that turned you -"

The marker was being held up erect in Sheldon's hand, its tip pointing upward. "Will this work?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

* * *

"Oh, look at that one! It's just a juvenile! It's so cute!" Amy cooed, watching the small capuchin reach for the sugarcane. Then she turned at looked at her tall boyfriend. "Oh, Sheldon, this is so much fun! We're so fortunate the zoo has opened up the weekly treat time to the public."

"I'm glad you're enjoying it. But I thought they were going to be eating fruit, not sugarcane. If you want to see an adorable animal eat a green stick, the koalas and their eucalyptus are right down this path."

"Sugarcane is still high in carbohydrates, although it does have some fiber," Amy explained, ignoring his koalas comment. She'd already promised him they'd go after they finished this. "Monkeys in captivity are usually only fed a vegetable-based plant diet now because so many fruits are bred with higher sugar contents for human consumption. Maybe the keepers are trying to give them something with fewer calories first."

"Did you bring some fruit?" Sheldon asked as the keeper came over to unlock the gate separating the monkeys from the zoo visitors that had reserved and paid extra from this privilege. The couple in front of Sheldon and Amy entered for their turn, and the gate was shut again.

"No, the confirmation email said they'd provide the food. Probably a safety control and a way to limit the portions or something."

"That's a shame. I have something in my pants I thought you'd be really, really happy to see," he leaned over and whispered, raising his arm over her head to grip the metal barrier. His body rubbed against hers. "Maybe later, if it's still there."

Amy gulped. There  _was_ something in his pants, something long and jutting slightly outwards. She'd never considered having to find somewhere at the zoo that would both offer privacy and -

"Or maybe if I get hungry, I'll just eat this banana myself."

* * *

"Well, then it must be in that one," Amy said with a large sigh, standing up straight over the box. "Murphy's law; it's always in the last place you look."

"That is neither Murphy's law nor a logical statement. Why would you keep looking once you found it? Ergo, of course it's in the last place one looks regardless of the amount of time involved," Sheldon replied.

He was watching her in the middle of his storage unit, where Amy had stored many of the items from her old apartment that didn't find a way into their joint new one. She'd purged a lot of items, but the things she wanted to keep for sentimental reasons or because she thought she might someday need them had been sorted, boxed, labeled, and carefully stacked here. But she'd labeled five separate boxes as 'Books, Periodicals & Papers,' which wasn't as helpful as she expected when she discovered she needed a notebook of equations from five years ago.

"Okay, fine, Hofstadter's Law," she said, grabbing the box cutter and moving to the largest and heaviest of her boxes.

"As I assume you're not referencing my former roommate, you must mean the phrase first coined in the 1979 book  _Gödel, Escher, Bach_. But that's an adage in the field of computer programming about estimating the time needed for complex tasks -"

"Which is why I first chose Murphy's Law. I meant it in its modern context, not in the strict definition," Amy interrupted him tersely, bending over and digging her way through the box, shifting notebooks and magazines and paperbacks around. "Over time, the phrase has come to mean that the least desired outcome that could arise from a certain set of variables is the one that has occurred. The very opposite of what one wants to happen. As in, I wanted to stop by quickly and grab my notebook, but,  _of course,_ it's going to be in the very last box I look in and take far longer than I'd hoped."

"Interesting. I hadn't considered that." He paused. "The time doesn't matter to me, Amy. We're just on our way home."

She looked up and smiled softly at him. "Thank you. Sorry to take my frustration out on you. It's just that I really need this work, I don't want to have to recreate it all." She turned back down and started digging some more. "I bet you it's going to be on the very bottom. This box is so crowded and deep I can hardly see what's in here!"

"Do you want my help?" Sheldon asked. "Tell me what it looks like."

"I don't think we'd both be able get our hands in here, it's too tightly packed. I guess I could pass things up to you to hold in those big arms of yours." She moved two books from one stack to another.

"I think you need another kind of help: something just the right size for you."

Amy froze and then lifted her head. Yep, there was definitely something poking her rear end. It was just the right size, alright.

"To help relieve your frustrations."

She stood and turned slowly while saying, "Well, I thought I needed my notebook but maybe I just y - oh."

Sheldon pulled the flashlight out of his pants and handed it to her.

* * *

Amy looked out the window over the sink at the wet bricks of the building next door. It wasn't a very good view, but at least it let her see the weather. Not that there was much to see with all this rain. After years of draught, the first rainstorms had been welcome but now there was the concern for flooding.

She turned when Sheldon came over and took a clean glass off the shelf.

"You looked deep in thought," he said.

Amy pulled the stopper out of the sink and reached for the hand towel. "Oh, I just thinking about what an abysmal looking day it was."

"We don't have anywhere to go. We'd only planned to say in today, anyway," he said, turning the faucet closer to him and filling his glass with water.

Nodding, Amy said. "I know. I guess all these gray days in a row are getting to me more than I thought they would. We should do something cheerful and fun this afternoon."

"I think what I have in my pants will cheer you up." He wrapped an arm around her waist and put his glass down with the other one. "It's something fun."

Shaking her head, Amy chuckled as she felt something firm pressing against her from Sheldon's trousers. "Oh, no, I'm not falling for that again."

"Falling for what again?" he asked, bending down to brush her hair away and kiss her behind her ear. But he didn't back up any.

"Hooooo . . . Nope, you're just doing it again."

"What again?" He wrapped his other arm around her and tilted to the other side, both to kiss her under the opposite ear and to rub his pants against her skirt.

"I know you have something unexpected in your pants and you're going to pull it out and dash my hopes," she said with a smile. She wasn't angry, just amused. It was actually funny to imagine Sheldon trying to come up with ever more absurd phallic-shaped objects to put in his britches. "It's like a naughty game of  _Jeopardy!_  and the category is 'Things in His Pants.'"

"What do you mean?" But he sounded distracted as he kissed her neck, right in the spot that made her nether regions quiver.

"You know," Amy continued, trying her best to remain strong, "a Luna bar, a marker, a list of Comic-Con panelists, a banana, a flashlight. What will it be today, I wonder?"

"This." Sheldon turned her gently and reached for her hand, guiding it down and placing it where she could feel  _exactly_  what was in his pants.

"Oh."

"So, Amy," he bent down and kissed her, "do you still want to play?"

"I'll take 'Things in His Pants' for $1000. And let's make it a true Daily Double."

* * *

_**;-) Thank you in advance for all your reviews!** _


	18. Episode Eighteen: The Escape Hatch Identification

Amy yawned as she pulled the quilt up over her legs. She turned and looked at her almost-finished novel on the nightstand, the bookmark taunting her with secrets it was about to reveal. She was tired but she was also dying to know how it ended. Sleep or just one more chapter? A very common dilemma.

As she was alone this evening because Sheldon was working late with Leonard and Howard on their military project, she decided to read. It would be nice to still be awake when Sheldon got home, so she could talk to him a bit before they fell asleep.

Picking up the book, Amy looked for her clip-on reading light and frowned. She thought she'd left it right - Oh, she remembered. Sheldon had borrowed it last night, as there was something he wanted to finish in the book he was reading. He'd probably put it back in his bedside drawer. She stretched across the bed and pulled on the knob of the drawer, reaching her hand inside to grab it. His book was on top, and she pulled it out but then did a double take at the cover.

It wasn't the fantasy novel that Sheldon was reading last night, this was a navy blue hardbound book. Amy sat up straighter and pulled the journal closer to her. How did he get this back? Did Raj give it back to him? Or Penny?

For a moment, Amy sat and fumed. Really? Were none of their friends capable of seeing what a kind gift it was for Sheldon to give this journal to Raj? So, yes, he'd let slip a single word that was not perhaps the most polite thing to say in the situation, but why did they have to focus exclusively on that instead of seeing how thoughtful he was being, how he was trying so hard to be gracious? Why couldn't they realize that he was struggling with yet another life change out of his control? Why did they always have to make such snide comments about living with him and taunt him mercilessly about Cinnamon?

But then she picked up the journal to examine it closer. The corners of the cover were paler and rougher than she remembered. And now that she was looking it, some of gilt from the edges of the pages seemed to have rubbed off. Amy frowned. It wasn't like Sheldon to give a subpar gift.

She gently opened the cover and sucked her breath in at the mathematical formula she saw on the page. This wasn't the new journal Sheldon had bought for Raj, although it was an exact copy. This was Sheldon's journal, the one he'd kept when he was living across the hall, the one that inspired his gift to Raj, the one in which he'd recorded all his important thoughts.

Amy froze and glanced at the bedroom door and the dark front room beyond it. Was it wrong to be looking at Sheldon's journal like this? Probably, as these equations were the closest thing Sheldon would ever come to recording thoughts he wanted kept private. It was essentially his diary, and she knew it.

But, she reasoned, looking back down and turning a couple of pages, it was all math. Amy stopped to study an equation, losing her way after a few lines. It was very complex and theoretical and over her head. She turned a few more pages, quicker now, and decided to stop. Not only because it was probably not meant for her eyes, but because it didn't seem that revealing, anyway.

Shaking her head slightly, she started to flip over the back cover to shut the journal, but her eyes caught some text and she stuck her fingers in quickly to hold the page. She stared at the mostly blank page in front of her.

_Amy > cats (cats = Zazzles)_

She smiled. Well, it  _was_  technically a math equation. Eagerly, she turned a few more pages, but again the ruled lines where only filled with numbers and symbols. It must have been a stray thought. She recalled how distraught he'd been then; both Leonard and his mother had commented on it at the time.

Flipping through the pages rapidly now, Amy was just about to put the book away when she saw some more text. She stopped suddenly and turned back a few pages until she came to two facing sheets covered in Sheldon's small, precise handwriting. She gave one more furtive glance at the bedroom door before she started to read.

_The feel of her lips makes mine tingle. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. my lips are chapped._  
_2\. my lips are cold._  
_3\. I have accidentally used the peppermint formula of Chapstick._  
_4\. a brain parasite is causing paresthesia of my extremities._  
_5\. I love her._

_I think about her when she'd not here. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. frequency illusion._  
_2\. I am developing monophobia._  
_3\. early symptom of schizophrenia or Parkinsons._  
_4\. a brain parasite is causing low-grade seizures._  
_5\. I love her._

_My heart rate accelerates when she enters the room. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. undiagnosed heart murmur._  
_2\. atrial fibrillation._  
_3\. her arrival has frightened me (make her wear a bell?)._  
_4\. the parasitic brain virus Amy caught from Zach has a three-and-a-half year incubation period and I am now displaying the first symptoms._  
_5\. I love her._

_I dream about her. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. I was thinking about her before I fell asleep._  
_2\. I am half-Betazoid and she is an alien that is also trapped in this Tyken's Rift with me, and we can only communicate via dreams._  
_3\. changes in REM patterns causing increased nocturnal penile tumescence._  
_4\. a brain parasite is causing an increase in testosterone._  
_5\. I love her._

_I feel that no one understands me as well as she does. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. I am caught in an after-school special or season five of_ Buffy, The Vampire Slayer _.  
2\. I am suffering from depression._  
_3\. everyone else is stupid (true, but perhaps not relevant)._  
_4\. a brain parasite is causing a hormonal imbalance._  
_5\. I love her._

_I want to make her happy and doing so makes me happy. Differential diagnosis:_  
_1\. endorphins released in the absence of exercise._  
_2\. someone has slipped a cannabinoid into my Yoo-Hoo._  
_3\. Leonard has learned to clean the kitchen sink correctly._  
_4\. a brain parasite is causing bipolar disorder._  
_5\. I love her._

* * *

After opening the door to their apartment carefully, Sheldon was surprised to find the there was still a light coming from the bedroom.

"Amy?" he called softly.

No reply.

Sheldon quickly put away his keys and his bag, removed his jacket, and tiptoed into the space. He stopped in the doorway with a little smile. Amy had fallen asleep reading, and her head was tilted back against the headboard as her mouth gapped open. Her glasses were crooked.

Grinning, he walked around the end of the bed and reached down to lift the open book out of her hands. He froze, looking down at the cover. It was his journal.

"Sheldon?"

He looked up to see Amy adjusting her glasses and pulling herself more upright. They stared at each other for a moment before she spoke, her voice soft and contrite. "I'm sorry. I know it's your diary and it's private. I shouldn't have snooped. I know I violated the condition of mutual trust that we agree is essential for -"

"Shhhh," Sheldon stopped her, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her. She shifted her legs to made room for him. "It doesn't even have a lock. Don't you think my diary would be on a flash drive with 28-point encryption key locked away in a safe deposit box at my bank, the password of which is a riddle in Sindarin?"

"That was oddly specific," Amy muttered. Then, louder, "Please, I understand if you're angry with me, and I realize all I can do is apologize."

"I'm not angry," Sheldon shook his head, "not really. Okay, I'm a little angry with your timing. I was going to wrap it up and give it to you for our anniversary, since you claim snakes jumping out of a bag aren't good enough."

"You were?" Amy hushed, bringing her hand to her chest.

"You've probably already detected your presence in a few of the entries. The rest would be for your own edification."

"I found the section when you decided you loved me," she said softly, reaching for his hand.

"Whew, that was an indecisive week."

Amy pulled her hand away sharply. "Thanks."

After a brief pause, Sheldon reached over and took the hand back. "Not really. Only on paper. And now time as proven my original conclusion true, every single day."

"I love you, too," Amy said with a smile.

Sheldon leaned forward and planted a small kiss on Amy's lips. "I didn't thank you for being so understanding with me the other night. I shouldn't have called Beverly. Not only did it stir up more trouble than it was worth, I realized I didn't need her advice when it comes to emotions anymore. I already have you."

Amy reached forward and rested her palm on his cheek, just as she had the very first night they were intimate. It was not a common action for her, and Sheldon did not know if it was the soft and warmth of her palm, the rarity of the action, or the reminder of the first time she'd done it, but it always made him close his eyes and take a deep breath of her nearness.

"Come to bed," Amy whispered in his ear and Sheldon opened his eyes with a smile.

* * *

_**Thank you for your reviews! Bonus points to the first reviewer who correctly identifies the episode of** _ **Star Trek** **referenced here . . .**


	19. Episode Nineteen: The Collaboration Fluctuation

Turning over didn't help. Rearranging his legs didn't help. Humming to himself only made Amy kick him. Fluffing his pillow didn't help.

"Sheldon," Amy finally sighed, "can't you sleep?"

"No. I've thought of an experiment I need to try."

"Write it down in your new journal. That's what it's for," Amy mumbled.

"But I need your input," he explained, rolling toward her.

Amy rolled toward him. "Okay, fine, tell me about it."

"Excellent. I was thinking about our work today and how much progress we made. It was a very productive session."

"Agreed."

"So . . . if being snarky with each other improves our mental capabilities, do you think it would also improve our physical capabilities?"

"Once again, I'm not playing Quidditch with you."

"No, I meant here, in bed. Our intimate capabilities." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

"You want to annoy me and degrade me while we're being intimate?" Amy's eyebrows dipping alarmingly low. "Nope."

"But, Amy, think how well it worked for our equations! Don't we owe to science to determine if the tension inherent to conflict also increases the ultimate outcome of our coitus? All that hormonal flight-or-fight stuff."

"You want conflict here, in our bed, for science?"

"All the best things happen for science."

Amy reached up and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Sheldon, I do not think being insulted while being intimate is a healthy precedent to set. It will only serve to make us self-conscious about the physical attributes of our bodies which in turn will only lower our self-esteem."

"But how?" Sheldon protested. "We have no reason to worry about the physical arrangement of our bodies."

"Says the man who mysteriously never ages and builds muscles from a workout consisting entirely of lifting dry erase markers."

"You like my muscles!"

"Yes, I do." Amy pulled herself upright. "So how would it make you feel if I told, here in bed, while touching your naked body, that your muscles . . . that they looked stupid in your tee shirts, that you looked liked an overstuffed sausage."

"Hmm, I would have thought that would be more appropriate for another part of my anatomy -"

"Sheldon!"

"Okay, okay." He paused and pulled himself up next to her. "Given the way you just said it, I know that you didn't mean it. But, because I love you, I am willing to admit that, just for a very brief second, I visualized my biceps as they looked under my clothing the last time I looked in a mirror and wondered if my shirt did, in fact, look too tight."

"See? Even you, with your perfect body, had a fleeting moment of doubt."

"Oh, it wasn't doubt. It was merely curiosity."

Amy titled her head so that she could look over him over the top of her glasses. "And our mothers? Do you want to talk about them in the middle of sex?"

"I'm not saying the same ground rules would apply. Instead, I'm proposing that we establish a separate set of guidelines appropriate to the new situation. No mother talk, but your deviated septum is fair game." He reached up to touch the little bump in her nose.

"You said you liked it! You called me a foxy tea kettle!" Amy said sharply.

"See! Doesn't your ire make you feel frisky?"

"No, it most certainly doesn't." Amy slid down and pulled the quilt back over her with an exaggerated huff.

Sheldon sat up and looked over her. "But you agreed that our interactions this afternoon, those that some may consider negative, where actually productive in our case earlier."

"Yes, they were. But that was different." She took a deep breath and turned to look at him. "That was science, this is love."

"I thought you liked love best when science was mixed in. Everything is better with science. The basis of our intellectual connection has always been our shared love of science," Sheldon said softly, furrowing his brow.

This was not how he had expected this to go at all. He thought he'd present Amy with an activity that was both a science experiment and a sex game, two of her favorite things, and the next thing he'd know she'd be insulting his thrusting technique. Which, he hypothesized, would lead to the best orgasm of his life. Hopefully the best mutual orgasm of both of their lives.

Amy put her hand on his arm. "Yes, you're correct. Maybe love was the wrong term. I meant the physical act of sex. I just don't want it to be negative or insulting, even for science. And, besides, we're professional scientists in the fields we were discussing earlier, but we are not Dr. Ruths."

"What?"

Shaking her head slightly, Amy said, "I meant this isn't our area of expertise. I have don't have my PhD in intercourse, and you're not a doctor of coitus."

"That's not what you were screaming while I was giving you cunnilingus last week."

"I'm being serious."

"So am I! You screamed, and I quote -"

"I know what I said!" Amy said sharply. "No. Just, no. This is a hard no for me, Sheldon. There will be no insults, for science or for any other legitimate reason, when we're making love. It's counter productive and probably harmful."

"But it's for science!"

His girlfriend turned away, presenting her back to him. "Saying 'for science' isn't a carte blanche for every action. This conversation is over."

"But I'm still talking."

"Over."

Sheldon sighed and rolled away from her. "Fine."

* * *

Amy checked her calculations again, gave a deep sigh, and started pacing. Where was Sheldon? Leonard had said they weren't planning on working late this evening as they just had a one or two things to finish before they left. And that was easily an hour ago.

Of course, it had already occurred to her and she was trying not to dwell on what was probably the obvious: Sheldon didn't want to come home. He'd still been terse and spiky over breakfast about her refusal to try his sex experiment. When Amy had tried to steer the conversation back around to their actual scientific work, he'd insulted her dedication to her profession.

Amy was unsure if that, too, was an attempt to get her in the mood. There had, after all, been a president for that, when they'd first moved in. But this time, it felt . . . personal. Sheldon didn't couch his insults in lingo and euphemisms, using words only she'd understand, a game of verbal catch, as it were.

Finally, there was the sound of his keys in the door, and Sheldon walked in. "Hello."

"Hi! You're home."

"Yes."

Biting her lip, Amy waited as he unstrapped his bag and took off his windbreaker, trying to gage his mood. Then he noticed what was behind her. "What's that?"

"A white board of calculations."

"I know, but why do you have it covered like that?" Sheldon pointed out the pillowcase draping over the board. And the four other boards draped in the same fashion.

"Listen, Sheldon, before I show you, I need to say something."

"Okay." He came to stand nearer to her.

Amy took a deep breath. "I thought about our conversation last night, about the use of science in bed. And I think I've found a solution. If -"

"Wait," Sheldon interrupted her, although it was soft. "I think I owe you an apology. I didn't understand your point of view and I thought you weren't even trying to see mine. But, today, I thought about it a little more - and, okay, yes, talked about it with Leonard and Howard - and I've come to understand at least some of your concerns. Being nude and being intimate is a vulnerable situation already, although I want to reassure you that you have nothing to be concerned about in regards to your physical appearance or your performance, and it is not perhaps the best thing for us to make each other feel even more vulnerable."

Smiling, Amy nodded. "Thank you. And while pointing out flaws, real or exaggerated, is still not something I want to take place, I do think I've found a way to bring science into the bedroom. Because you were correct about that; our mutual love of science shouldn't have boundaries as long as we both agree to it. Would you like to see it?"

"Of course." Sheldon leaned back so that he was sitting on the back of the aqua sofa.

Amy took a deep breath and pulled the pillowcase off the first white board. "I _do_ love your muscles, and you _don't_ look like an overstuffed sausage in your shirts. Rather, you might be interested to know that my only concern is that the circumference of your bicep -" she pointed to the diagram she'd made "- is such that I cannot wrap my hand -" she pointed to the next equation "- completely around it, which is a shame because sometimes I, um, really need to hang on to something."

"Huh." Sheldon go up to study the diagrams and equations closer. Amy held her breath. "This is to scale, correct?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"Unclothed bicep, I presume."

"Yes."

"Hmmm." He pursed his lips and studied it some more, before he looked over at her. "Is the purpose of this exercise to solve the problem? Because I'm not really sure how to make my biceps smaller, as it's a complete mystery where they come from in the first place."

"No!" Amy put her hands out. "I'm afraid I didn't explain this properly. This is my . . . attempt at what you suggested. Here, maybe this will help." She quickly pulled the pillowcase off the next whiteboard. "Your eyes are so bright and blue that I'm afraid you'll burn my retinas when I lock gazes with you."

On this board, Amy had created a graph, with the center of the sun at one end and an LED light bulb at the other. In between were a variety of items, from the most bright to the least. Sheldon's eyes were charted at the third most luminescent item, just after the UV light produced by a welding arc.

"I don't think I need to ask if these stilbs are correct," Sheldon said. He reached for the third pillowcase. "May I?"

Amy nodded, her heart still thumping. Although Sheldon seemed intrigued, it wasn't clear if he really understood what she attempting to illustrate. She watched as his eyebrows shoot up.

"My, that's an incredibly detailed drawing." He glanced over at her. "The length is accurate?"

Another nod. He brought his hand up and hovered it just about the drawing. "Well, either I'm an over-achiever or that old adage is incorrect." He leaned closer. "Funny. I've never actually seen it from this angle." He pointed. "Speed and dihedral angle? And then . . . you've used that to help calculate velocity. And if the dihedral angle increases then the velocity . . . does, too."

Pointing at the bottom of the board, Amy started, "And this is -"

"The decibels and pitch of your verbalizations in comparison to breaking glass. Yes, I concur." He looked over at her and smiled. "You worry that the pleasure you derive from my penis in motion is so great that our windows might shatter."

The breath she'd been holding was released, and Amy smiled back. "Do you like it?" she whispered.

"Like it?" He asked, turning closer to her. "I love it! This just may be the sexiest thing you've ever done for me." He waved his hand. "What's on the next two? Can I look?"

"Actually, they're blank. I thought we could work on them together."

He turned back quickly, his eye glowing. Just like that welder's arc. "Oh! We could chart the sodium cations on the skin of your inner thigh as related to other alkali metals."

Amy grinned. "Yes, if you want."

"Because tasting you makes me parched to such an extent only your kisses will satiate my gustatory cells."

She threw herself at him, grasping those biceps so round and firm, pulling him toward her, kissing him passionately. Finally, it was Sheldon who pulled away, panting. "And yet your kisses are like saltwater to me. They only leave me wanting more. We need to make sure to include that in our diagram."

One more soft kiss and she said, "Shall we begin?"

"I think we need to gather some more data first."

"For science?" Amy asked.

Sheldon put out his hand and stepped toward the bedroom. "Always for science."

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	20. Episode Twenty: The Recollection Dissipation

"Dear Lord, I am brilliant!"

Amy yelped and dropped her knitting needles as Sheldon came bursting through the door of their apartment. "Sheldon!" She reached to pick up the needlework in one hand and turned the television off with the remote in the other. "I thought you were at work. I decided to go in later, after all, so you could dedicate your morning to your military project."

After Amy rubbed the Vicks on Sheldon's chest that morning, she proposed that if her boyfriend worked with Leonard and Howard in the morning and worked with her in the afternoon that might be a better use of time. Sheldon was skeptical, although she benefited from his illness preventing his willpower to argue.

"I left those losers in the lab," he declared as though he hadn't heard her half-hearted excuse, waving his notebook instead as he sat next to her on the sofa. "I worked on my own and it's brilliant, Amy, real first-class work here. Wait, is there a class above first-class? Delta elite flyers?"

Smiling, Amy turned to him. "You seem to be feeling much better. Is your cold gone already?"

Sheldon shrugged. "I guess so. Maybe it wasn't a cold, after all. Whatever is in that medicine you gave me makes me feel like I could go into the night!" He leaned closer and wiggled his eyebrows. "Is that a flannel nightgown you're still wearing or are you just happy to see me?"

"I'm not sure pseudoephedrine agrees with you," she murmured, putting her hand gently on his chest. "Maybe you ought to go back to bed."

"Yes," he purred, leaning over her so much she tilted back, "let's go to bed." His fingers skimmed her flannel-clad leg and she felt the hem of her nightgown creeping higher as he tugged on it gently.

"Have you been listening to flamenco music again?" Amy asked, not wanting to be breathless and yet finding herself that way.

"If I say si, will you say yes?" Sheldon whispered, and then his lips where upon her.

"Oh!" Amy exclaimed into the passionate kiss. Finally, she was able to push him away. "As much I enjoyed that, I don't think you're in your right mind."

"My mind has never been more right!" Sheldon protested. "I'm not drugged up, if that's what you're worried about. I haven't had any caffeine or alcohol. This, my love, is the outpouring of my unparalleled intellect. My brain is no longer capable of holding it all in, and I must burn it off. What better way to do that than with you?"

"Hooooo -" Amy bit her exhale off sharply. Sheldon had just called her _my love._ That was new. As much as she enjoyed it, it also felt . . . odd.

She jerked when his soft hand rested on her hip - her bare hip, under her nightgown. How had he managed that?

"Please, Amy," he begged into another kiss, his fingertips catching the edge of her panties and running back and forth just under the elastic. "Please, Amy," he whispered as he broke away and skimmed her cheek with his before his hissed into her ear, "I want you."

"Yes - oh God!" Amy threw her head back and Sheldon long fingers dipped with speed and agility deeper into her panties. Her legs spread involuntarily to give him more room. Not that he was using that room, concentrating on one tiny part of her, the part that had the power to undo her. His digits worked with practiced agility and precision. "Is - this - what - you - Sheldon!"

At the moment she was incapable of fully grasping time, but Amy was certain she'd never come to climax so quickly. She fell back, panting into the corner of the sofa, and opened her eyes to see Sheldon's grinning face. "What was that?"

"An orgasm."

"No, I mean . . ." She closed her eyes, incapable of completing the sentence.

Sheldon rubbed his whole body along her, leaning down to blow in her ear again. "An appetizer. I wanted to make you hot and wet and gasping for air. And me."

Amy's eyes snapped open. That was not a Sheldon-like thing to say. Yes, he was quite adept at bringing her successfully to climax - although, never in such a concise manner before - but he never, ever had used words like that previously. Comparing her body to a spaceship or a mathematical formula was his idea of talking dirty. "What's gotten into you?" she asked.

"Nothing." He kissed her softly. "Or rather everything. I can see it all in my mind, the numbers and the solutions, and they are swirling around you. You!"

Well, _that_ sounded a little bit more like the Sheldon she knew. Maybe he really was horny; success in his work could have that effect on him. And the way he was talking, whatever he discovered and wrote down in his notebook was of paramount importance.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"Don't I sound better?" Sheldon took a sharp, loud breath, the air rushing through his nasal passages. "No congestion."

"Well . . . now that you mention it . . ."

"Feel my forehead." Amy obliged him. "See, no fever."

"Well . . . it is true you don't feel hot anymore."

"Oh, I'm hot. Hot for you. Let me burn you up," he purred into a nibble on her earlobe. "Please, I'm desperate to get these pants off!"

How many years had she fantasied about the moment Sheldon would enter a room, slam the door, ask her consent, and then have his way with her? Did it really matter that it was only ten o'clock in the morning? If he said he felt up to the task, then . . .

"Okay, then. Take me now!"

"Yes, my lady!"

Before Amy could even raise her eyebrows in surprise, Sheldon had swooped her up in those strong arms of his. "Sheldon?"

"To the bedroom!" he called, carrying her swiftly as she threw her arms around his neck and laughed and kicked her feet just before she squealed as he tossed her on the bed.

"Naked! Now!" he ordered as he simultaneously kicked off his shoes and removed his tee shirts.

* * *

"What was that?" Amy managed to say as her head lulled to the side. Her skin still felt like it was on fire and her lungs were aching for air, just as Sheldon warned. Not that it mattered. She felt amazing.

"Three things at the same time," Sheldon answered, equally breathless next to her. "You found my ability to multitask very alluring in the lab yesterday. I thought I'd prove to you I could do it here, too."

"I'll say."

Sheldon rolled on his side to look at her. "Do you want to go dancing?"

"What?"

"Dancing."

"Huh?"

"Think about it." Sheldon kissed her quickly on the cheek and got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Amy called after him, but her voice sounded weak.

"To the shower."

"Amy?"

"Huh?" Amy's eyes snapped open. Hadn't Sheldon just left? But there he was, leaning over her, dressed with damp hair and smelling like soap. And she was now covered in the quilt.

"I brought you some water." He held up a glass and then sat it next to her on the end table.

"What time is it?"

"Shh, go back to sleep."

Amy pulled herself up on her elbows, her brow furrowing. "But you -"

"I'm going dancing. I had an idea that perhaps the steps and rhythm involved in country line dancing might be helpful in determining the attosecond that muscle memory kicks our subconscious in its yee-haw."

"What? Maybe this was a bad idea. That cold medicine -"

"- needs taken every four hours. Don't worry," he leaned over and kissed her forehead, "I just took another dose. Even though I feel healthy as a horse."

With a wink, he turned and left, leaving Amy confused but wonderfully sated, looking around the bedroom, wondering if it had all been a dream.

* * *

Rubbing his head, Sheldon wished he could drill a hole in it to let all the backed up fluid drain out. A medicinal trepanning sounded perfect. He thought about taking more of Amy's cold medicine, although he told himself last night that he wouldn't take it ever again because it had made him forget a whole day. But he felt so horrible all he wanted to do was sleep through the night, and a large chunk of said forgotten day involved sleep. Besides, he was just going to bed and Amy was there to watch over him, so how much trouble could he get into? Surely if he started to walk out the door under the influence of the medication, Amy would stop him. It's what a girlfriend was for.

No. He shook his head and took his usual remedy of Children's Tylenol instead.

Having brushed and flossed and relieved himself, Sheldon wiped down the bathroom, including the doorknob, with a Lysol wipe before walking into the bedroom. Amy was already under the covers with her glasses off. She'd been so wonderful today, working from home so she could take care of him. Plus she'd stayed up too late with him late night, making him tea and singing to him. No wonder she was already asleep. He hoped to join her quickly.

Tucking himself in and turning off the light, he whispered at her, "Good night."

"Good night."

Sheldon raised his eyebrows. "I thought you were asleep."

"Mmmm," Amy mumbled rolling over and putting her arm around his waist, "I think I've become too accustomed to sleeping next to you to sleep without you."

"I've become very accustomed to you, too." Sheldon angled to snuggle closer to her.

"That was sweet."

"Well, you were very sweet to me today. I do appreciate it, Amy." He tilted toward her to kiss her head softly. "I'd give you our usual and proper goodnight kiss but I'm sick. I don't want to pass along any more germs than unavoidable in a communal living situation."

"Too late."

"What?" Sheldon pulled back slightly. "Are you already feeling the first symptoms? I haven't heard you sneeze."

"No, I meant there were a lot of unnecessary germs passed yesterday."

"But I thought you threw out the infected toast and made your own." He furrowed his brow. That he remembered clearly.

"No, when you came home." Amy's voice was getting that edge-of-sleep quality he knew.

"When I came home?" Sheldon racked his brain. By the time he'd returned from his investigative outing with Leonard and Raj last night, Amy had already wiped everything with Lysol and initiated the virus protocol they'd developed together. He was certain they'd both followed the guidelines to the letter.

"When you came home from the lab, before you went dancing," Amy mumbled.

"What?" He shook his girlfriend gently. "I know you're sleepy, but you have to tell me about this. My phone said I was only in the lab and at the cowboy bar."

Amy pulled away and sat up on her elbow. "And in the building, remember?"

"Of course I was in the building. I started here."

His girlfriend shook her head. "No. I should have told you last night. You came home in between. I was still here, because our original plan was for me to go in at lunch to work with you all afternoon in lab. Remember that?"

"The plan? Yes."

"Well, you came home and you were . . . in an amorous mood." She smiled slightly. "I think the cold medicine acted as a stimulant in your system."

"You're saying I came home and we - wait, what did we do?"

"There was some multitasking."

"What do you mean by multi - Ooohhhhh."

The vision - or a memory, really - came to him in a flash. Amy's hands gripped tightly on the headboard as he looked over her shoulder, one of his hands toying with her breast and the other reached down and around . . . then one last deep thrust and she threw her head back with a shout, enjoying stimulation in three different ways.

"Oh. Hot and wet and gasping for air."

"See, you do remember." She patted his arm and lay down again.

But Sheldon pulled away, sitting up in bed. He did remember parts, like the sound of his thighs slapping her bottom but . . .

"Sheldon?" Amy asked softly, pulling herself upright next to him.

"I forgot," he whispered.

"I know."

"No, you don't understand." He shook his head sharply. "How could I forget you?"

Amy rested her hand on his arm. "It's okay. Apparently amnesia was a side effect of the cold medicine."

"It's not okay!" he protested, turning to look at her. "How could I forget you, loving you?" He remembered the slapping, the force of his thrust, the wonderful depth. Oh Lord, the depth. "Amy," he whispered, "was I too rough?"

"Sheldon," Amy shook her head, "do you honestly think I would still be here if anything had happened without my willing agreement?"

He took a deep breath. Of course not. Amy would never calmly accept anything she didn't want. Nor did he ever want her to.

Softer, Amy continued, "Nothing happened that I didn't want to happen or didn't thoroughly enjoy. Your aggressiveness - which was very sexy - was always ruled by your gentleness. You literally swept me off my feet." She looked down. "If anyone should apologize, it's probably me. I thought you weren't acting like normal, I had the feeling something was off, but I happily allowed you to proceed anyway for selfish reasons."

"What should we do?" Sheldon asked.

"I suppose the only solution is to recreate the experience once you're healthy and in full possession of your mental faculties again." She winked at him, and he knew the moment for any blame had passed, if it ever existed at all.

"You're really not upset?" he asked.

"Not at all." Amy leaned over and kissed his cheek before she lay back down. "Although, next time, we might try it in Spanish."

* * *

**_Thank you in advance for your reviews!_ **


	21. Episode Twenty-One: The Separation Agitation

 

She had the same blood type as him.

He knew it almost immediately. He could hear the rivers and streams of her blood coursing through her, hidden from the world but the words of their gurgles bubbled up to meet him. His rivers of blood understood every single muttering. She was the same type as him.

It was not that he was looking for an expedition. In fact, he was content on his own landmass, a continent apart. But then he heard the babbling brooks of her soul, and he understood they carried the same thoughts. Tentatively, unsure of himself, he decided to plant his flag there.

At first, her landscape was barren like the winter tundra, stark and blunt. She startled him and frightened him. It was not easy to explore her, but there was something haunting in her austere panoramas from which he could not leave. He took a deep breath of her clean frost and allowed her to fill his capillaries. She was the same type as him.

Then, one night, as he gazed amongst the stars, the same that he knew but from a fresh perceptive, it ghosted across the heaven: bands of green and pink, shimmering and arching in a display of magnetospheric plasma, an aurora that he felt with his heartbeat. He sat beneath his flag in awe.

New things caught his attention; at first, it was the palest shoots of scrappy weeds poking through the snow. Almost everyday there was a change: the vermillion yarrow and the scarlet snapdragons and the crimson columbine and the titian tulips. The thorn of a ruby rose pricked him and the drop of him that fell upon the petal of her was the same shade of claret. This land, she awakened and bleed spring for him, there as he stood next to his flag.

He began to study the flag he had planted upon his arrival and he found it lacking. For years, it had been his alone, a proud single embalm on a solid field of certainty, but now it was changed. Or he was changed, just as this land around him had changed. His flag was not sufficient, it did not contain the depth of this land, the warmth of its subcutaneous currents. Bending down, he kissed the earth of her, feeling her pulse in his lips for the first time and then he took his flag down and took it away, to study it, to repair it, to understand how she could be the same as him and yet also change him. For still they were same type, despite their awakenings.

He returned upon a summer's day, a new flag tucked under his arm, and he twirled in her meadows of warmth, heated from the blood that flowed in her veins. Loud and clear came the song of her rivers and streams once again, and he unfurled his new flag for her, a declaration that he had never stopped listening, just as she had unfurled for him. He planted his flag again, this time more firmly in the fertile ground. She was the same type as him.

The first biting winds of autumn came suddenly upon this land, and he felt the strong currents of her life-giving fluid dry up and pull away from him, casting him out alone as the flowers and the trees of her land died around him. The gentle breeze left, as well, and his flag hung, limp and unwanted. He tried, oh, how he tried!, to take his flag down and leave her, but he could not find the strength, the pole having been snarled in brambles and thorns that scratched him until he bled. It had grown into her just as she had grown into him, tattooing his heart, searing his soul. He should not have been surprised. After all, they were the same type.

Just when all hope was lost, he saw the bright red cardinal alight next to his flag and it sang a song to him, the song he had heard so long ago gurgling beneath her skin, the same song that spoke to him in a language only they would understand. For she was the same type as him.

So, instead of pulling his flag out of the ground, he ran and declared and pressed his flag in deeper, until the ribbons of joy hiding under her crust bubbled up. They stood together there, next to the flag, proud as a mast, for they were the same type.

It was winter again, but now he saw the beauty in the berries and the evergreens that had never left. He felt the warm of the sun and the magic of the auroras. Instead of barren spaces, he saw the virgin vistas ahead of them. He longed to explore the vast expanses of her snow-white skin, to encircle and ascend her mountains, to trace the concavity of her hollows, to let the whispery leaves of her hair brush through his fingertips, to drink more deeply of her waterfalls. For he discovered it was all seasons at once in this land, and he longed to explore slowly and trace the rivers beneath her surface with his fingertips and plant his flags with soft kisses.

At last, the brambles and thorns pulled away and, with the realization that nothing here would harm him, he found the gorge buried in secret and he explored that, too, until the blood he'd heard from the very beginning rushed to the surface of land and she rumbled from within as he planted another flag there in private. Their flag.

For she is all the same types that he wants and ever will.

* * *

**_This was meant to be an experiment in metaphor mixing, which made me realize why it's not done. Nevertheless, thank you in advance for your reviews!_ **


	22. Episode Twenty-Two: The Cognition Regeneration

"Mmmmm."

"Experience has taught me that your current state of arousal indicates you're ready for penetration."

". . ."

"What? Should I not have phrased it that way?"

"No, it's not that. Well, a little bit. Sheldon, there's something I want to tell you first."

"Right now?"

"Yes. I have something to tell you and I'm not sure how you'll react."

"If you're not sure, how do you expect me to know? And, again, right now?"

"I went to the dirty store with Penny and Bernadette today."

"Well, my reaction is confusion that you would patronize a store with known janitorial issues. But, as I've seen you wash your hands this evening, I presume you are not too contaminated. Or, wait, do you want to go wash your hands again? Seems a little late."

"No, Sheldon. It was an adult book store."

"I wasn't aware that there were bookstores without a children's section. My reaction to that is gratitude that you have informed me on this new development in book sales, as that sounds like an ideal business to patronize. Now, where were we?"

"No. It was a . . . sex shop."

". . . A sex shop?"

"Yes. A store that sells lingerie, lubricants, sex toys, things like that."

"If you were hoping to shock me, you'll be sorely disappointed. I was both aware such establishments existed and that Penny frequented them. I was just expressing surprise that you went, although I understand that it would have been rude on a group outing to refuse to enter."

"I didn't want to refuse. I bought something for us."

"Lingerie? Oh! Like a replica of Wonder Woman's costume in the new movie?"

"No, not lingerie. Or that either. I bought us a sex toy."

". . ."

"Sheldon?"

"I'm processing."

"We don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it might - it might be fun. Since you were trying new things, maybe we'd enjoy trying something new here."

"What's wrong with the old?"

"Nothing! But, as scientists, we know stagnation never works in the long term. Or wins you a Nobel Prize."

"They don't give Nobel Prizes for sex toys. Even the progressive Swedes seem to consider it too gauche."

"Then consider it metaphorical dynamite in honor of Alfred Nobel."

"That's a stretch."

"I thought you wanted to challenge and improve your motor skills. Thicken your gangloins."

"I thought you thought my gangloin was thick enough."

"It is! If it helps, I bought something that should help us accomplish something that I know frustrates you."

"Frustrates me?"

"You've expressed regret that you cannot bring me to orgasm in the missionary position, even though I've told you that, based on the arrangement of our anatomy, it's highly unlikely to occur."

"oh"

"Sheldon, listen to me. I love the missionary position. I love making love to you in any position. We can throw this out the window if you'd prefer -"

"Then everyone on the street will know what we're doing up here!"

"I just thought if might be fun to see if we can climax together in that position. I love climaxing with you."

" . . . Me, too."

"Aren't you also trying new things to prove that you excel at them? Wouldn't this be an ideal feather in your cap?"

"Wait! Is it an actual feather? I told you no tickle fights!"

"No, it's not a feather. It's battery powered."

"Then what if it electrocutes us?"

"It won't. But of course we can stop anytime. In fact, let's think of a safe word."

"A safe word?"

"A word that one us will say which can in no way be confused with sexual arousal or what's actually happening in reality, maybe even a turn off, to alert the other person that we need to stop immediately for any reason at all."

"Creationism?"

"That seems appropriate."

". . ."

". . .?"

"Very well, let's try it. What's it called?"

"Does it matter?"

"If we're inviting another party into our bed, I feel I ought to know its name."

"Fine. I selected something called The Humdinger, as it was advertised to increase satisfaction for both parties."

"Well, that's a silly name. Where is it?"

"I already took it out of the package and put it in my drawer . . . See, it's small and not at all frightening."

"But if you took out of the package how are we supposed to read the instructions?"

"There aren't any. It's very simple; after you put it on, we just flip this tiny switch and it starts to vibrate."

"But what do the instructions say?"

"I told you there's aren't any instructions."

"How's it supposed to be sexy and turn you on without numbered and bullets commands to read?"

"It's a cock ring, how complicated can it be?"

"Amy! Language!"

"Sorry . . . Here, I think you should put in on yourself but stop if it's uncomfortable."

"Will you?"

"Me? Are you sure?"

"It's just that all this talking about creationism and without any authoritative directions has . . . um . . . lessened the mood a bit."

"Let me help with that first."

"Oh! Mmm, your hands . . . oh, oh."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, go ahead."

". . . How does it feel?"

"Fine, I guess. It looks ridiculous. And it's a little snug."

"It's supposed to be. The vibrations should be enjoyable to you, too. All you do is flip the switch."

" . . . I can't get it to budge. It's too small."

"Let me try. Maybe your nails are too short -"

"Wowza!"

"Are you okay?"

"I just didn't expect that. It's very - stimulating."

"That's the idea. Are you ready?"

"Are you? . . . So, um, I'll try to go slowly. I don't wait to startle you."

"It's okay . . . Oh!"

"Amy?"

"Don't stop! That was just surprise."

"It is quite the novel sensation, isn't it? I bet you never imagined there would be something vibrating in your nether region like that."

". . ."

"Wow, Amy, this feel amazing!"

"I'll say!"

" . . . ! . . . !"

" . . . ! . . . !"

"Is it working?"

"Maybe. Can you - is it possible to slide it down a little? Or maybe you need to be deeper."

"Maybe . . . let's try again . . . "

"Oh, that is better."

"Mmmmm. Maybe if you put your legs around me."

"You just want me to put your legs around you."

"Always. I want to be gripped by you."

"Oh, Sheldon . . . "

". . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !"

". . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !"

"Wow, this is good, this is really good."

"Agreed!"

". . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !"

". . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . ! . . . !. . . ! . . . !"

"Sheldon! - I - think - it's - working!"

"Please - Amy!"

"Shellllllllddddddon!" "Gggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"-!-!-!"

"That was amazing -"

"Oh! - God! - Oh! - Again! - Shellllllllddddddon!"

"I'm glad you talked me into this. This is a most pleasing location from which to view your climax."

"Oh! - Oh! - Cre - create - !"

"Amy! Are you okay?"

"-! -! -!"

"Talk to me! What happened? Did it hurt? Did it electrocute you?"

"No, Sheldon - I just - can't catch - my breath. - I couldn't - do that again. - It was too much."

"Should I get you some water?"

"In a minute. It's better now. That really was explosive."

"One might even call it a humdinger."

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	23. Episode Twenty-Three: The Gyroscopic Collapse

 

Amy rolled off of him, her lungs still heaving, a smile of pleasure plastered on her lips. It was a practiced motion, and she pulled the sheet up over herself without even realizing she was doing it. Similarly, Sheldon's fingers found hers and interwove between their flushed bodies in a routine act Amy rarely considered.

"Thank you, Sheldon," she said.

"No need to thank me. I enjoyed it just as much as you," he replied. "It was to our mutual benefit."

"No, I mean," Amy rolled on her pillow to face him, switching which hand was holding his as she tucked an elbow under her head, "for the suitcase. More importantly, for what it represents."

"I want you to be a professional success," Sheldon said softly. "I won't hold you back from that. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression this morning."

"I know. I don't want to be away from you, either, even if it is only for a couple of months."

Sheldon rolled toward her now, breaking the hold on her hand. "I don't know what I'll do here without you."

"You'll be fine, I'm sure. Leonard and Penny are right across the hallway."

"That's not what I meant." He reached up and ran his hand along the edge of her face. "Will we be okay?"

"Of course we will," Amy said with all the conviction she could muster. They _would_ be fine, wouldn't they? She'd endured years before he'd even admitted that he loved her, they'd endured six weeks of Sheldon away on a train, and -

"It was awful when you left me last time."

That.

Amy sucked in her breath. "Sheldon, I'm sorry. You know that, you know I regret that. But this is different. I'm not leaving you. Well, physically, I am, of course, but I'm still your girlfriend, I still love you, I don't want anyone other than you, I don't need or want any time away from you."

"I know. I really do."

The pillow rustled when Amy tried to nod against it.

Sheldon leaned closer and rested his forehead against hers. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No, we should able to discuss this. It's important to be honest." She paused. "But there's nothing unknown this time. It's only temporary. There's a date on the calendar; circle it in red, that's when I'm coming back."

"I have it circled somewhere else." He reached for her hand dangling between them and placed it against his bare, damp chest.

"Oh, Sheldon," Amy hushed.

He leaned even closer and kissed her softly. "I love you, Amy. I'll be waiting."

"I love you, too. And we'll talk every day."

"Several times a day." Another kiss.

"First thing in the morning." Amy kissed him this time.

"Last thing before we fall asleep." This kiss was accompanied with a roll, and Sheldon's hot body pressed against her length.

"Sheldon?" she asked, surprised at what she felt against her hip. It had only been a few minutes.

"Amy, please. Let me be with you," he whispered back, raising his head to look into her eyes.

She nodded and spread her legs for him, helping him find where he wanted to be.

It was nothing like it just had been. It was not frenzied at all. There was no talking or shouting or pet names, just the sounds of their breathing. Nothing new or acrobatic or even efficient, just the smooth motion of Sheldon joining her, moving with her. He didn't even kiss her; instead he rested his head close to hers, his cheek brushing hers so that she could feel the little puffs of his exhalations against her ear. The pace was slow, the slowest Amy ever remembered it being, and there was a new delicacy in Sheldon's gentle motions.

Something was happening other than physical pleasure or even passion. This was their love stripped bare, in its purest form. Amy found that knowledge overwhelming, and she shut her eyes to hold back unshed tears. This was the man she loved and this is how he loved her, had loved her for years, although it was often hidden by so many of the other personality traits she appreciated about him. But here, now, there was just Sheldon and just her and just their love.

It came as a wellspring, wholly unexpected in that position and at that pace and with tears burning her eyes. It was the most beautifully exquisite thing she'd ever known, raising up out of her with a sob instead of a jubilant cry. The sobs continued, burning her chest, as her heart climaxed from Sheldon's love, and, only when the last had died away, did she realize his own climax had come and gone, too; whether it was a silent offering or an equal wail, she would never know. She'd never had an orgasm like that before, something far beyond the physical, meeting Sheldon on a separate plain.

Although she had no doubt that Sheldon had reached completion, too, he didn't move away, he didn't lift his cheek from hers, although Amy now felt that their skin was mingling with the dampness of tears. His body still sought hers, even more languid and placid than before, even though the rhythm had been lost and his quiet movements felt more like resigned but desperate grasps for her.

Then, he changed and she felt him trying to rotate in her, a new motion. She knew, without asking, it was an effort to maintain a status quo for which he yearned. For which she yearned. But it was a lost cause, she could feel it. Biology was betraying them, and Sheldon was falling away from her.

"Sheldon," she whispered, "you can move away if you need to."

"I don't want to leave you," he whispered back, trying one last, useless thrust before she felt he was gone from her.

Amy squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that he was also saying _I don't want you to leave me._

* * *

_**Thank you in advance for your reviews!** _


	24. Episode Twenty-Four: The Long Distance Dissonance

 

Her head flopped back against the pile of pillows, her neck too weak to hold it upright anymore. Her eyelids wanted to flutter shut, but she managed to keep them open just enough to peek out the bottom, through her eyelashes, and see his dark hair.

Exhaling deeply, she reached down and ran her fingers through it, gently scraping his scalp with her nails as her body wiggled in place, her hips caught by his strong palms. She moaned in response to the leverage of his broad shoulders on the underside of her thighs, pressing her knees higher.

"Oh, Sheldon . . . " she groaned, flexing her nails into his tender skin once more, pushing him down slightly. "Right there, that's good."

A loud, sudden sound emerged from her throat when her she felt the unexpected presence of his fingers inside, curling and stroking in a completely different rhythm than his tongue. How did he mange to keep the two straight? Counterpoint, he'd told her once. Honestly, at this moment she didn't care what he called it.

"Oh, God! Oh, yes!" She felt her legs start to stiffen, and his eyes appeared just over the edge of her mound and she stared into their oceanic depths just as the heat and the pressure overwhelmed her and she screamed out his name at the top of her lungs -

Amy awoke with a start, her breath actually panting from the dream. She pulled herself upright and looked around her short-term bedroom. Empty. Even the MRI of Sheldon's brain that she'd brought to set on her nightstand couldn't come close to replacing the warmth of his sleeping form.

She thought about laying back down and threading her hand beneath her nightgown to calm and release the excited flesh there. But a glance at the alarm clock told her it was about to go off. And now, her mind freed from its blissful subconscious, a single word floated up, dousing her arousal, punching her in the stomach, rising with bitterness up the back of her throat.

Ramona.

* * *

Ramona.

Why had she ever liked those books as a child? Ramona the pest, that's for sure. Who was really named Ramona anyway? Ramooooonna. It had the word moan right there in the middle. Ew. Like Moaning Myrtle. But worse.

Amy sighed and tried to concentrate on her work. Her colleagues were unlikely to be pleased with her performance on this fellowship if she frittered away all her time worrying about something three thousand miles away. Something she had no control over.

She was probably over-reacting anyway, she reasoned. Sheldon had willingly, even eagerly, revealed that he'd had lunch with Ramona. Academia and science was still very much a man's world, and Amy had several male coworkers she interacted with on a regular basis, including the occasional working lunch. That certainly didn't mean anything untoward was happening between them.

And how could Sheldon avoid any description of anything that happened at CERN, no matter who it was that was telling the story? He couldn't, she knew; the very word was like catnip to him.

And yet . . .

Looking up at the clock, though, her stomach twisted tighter. It had only been ten minutes since she'd hung up from her morning call with Sheldon. He'd seemed unusually quiet. There was something troubling him, she could tell. Something he was mulling over, considering, hypothesizing about. But still something in too early of a stage for him to feel comfortable discussing with her. Because Sheldon was not known for his verbal filter, it didn't happen often, which only worried her more.

Not that she should complain. Amy knew about Ramona's presence for thirty-six hours now and she still hadn't brought up her concerns to Sheldon. This was a character flaw, she knew; she ruminated too long before mentioning something important with Sheldon. But he'd had the tendency to over react in the past. Not lately, of course; she almost couldn't believe how easy and calm their time living together had been. It had all been going so well. She just knew she shouldn't have taken this fellowship.

Amy closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. _Calm down!_ , she admonished herself. It could be nothing. She had no reason to think otherwise. Sheldon had been his usual delightful self every time she talked to him previously; he'd even eagerly introduced her to Ramona last night, and Ramona said she'd heard so much about Amy from Sheldon. It was fine.

Another glance at the clock. Still too early to call Penny. Either she'd be out on the job or not awake yet.

* * *

"Amy!" came the bright cheer as soon as she answered the phone. "It's you!"

"Of course it's me, you called me," Amy reminded her blonde friend on the screen. She was not in the mood for games. Sheldon still hadn't made his lunch-his-time-late-afternoon-her-time call yet, and their arrangement was that he would would be the one to make the call at that time of day. Sheldon never forgot or bungled an arrangement. Her stomach was knotted up even trying to guess why.

"It's just that . . . I miss you so much!"

Her stomach clenched even tighter, which Amy wouldn't have thought was possible. "Listen, I'm glad you called. I need your advice on how to bring up Ramona to Sheldon. Tell me everything you know. I think that if I have all the available information, I'll know how concerned I should be and what the correct tactic -"

"So, sweetie, about that . . . um, Sheldon's missing."

"What?" Amy sat down sharply on the edge of the stool in her lab. It should have hurt, but her entire body was too numb to notice. "What do you mean 'missing'?" Had Ramona gone all _Fatal Attraction_ and kidnapped him? That bit-

"Leonard said he never came down to the cafeteria for lunch and when he went to check on him, Sheldon's office empty. But all the computers and stuff where turned on, it was like he'd just vanished."

"I should call him. Bye." Amy's thumb reached for the red button on her screen.

"Wait! Leonard said they've all be trying to get ahold of him but he's not answering. And we did the tracking thing, like when he left last time, but he's turned it off or something."

"Oh." Amy's mouth went dry. 'Like when he left last time.' Was he leaving on a train again? For six weeks? Without saying good-bye? But why turn off the tracking? Was he . . . she gulped . . . not alone?

"Ramona?" she whispered.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, Leonard tried to ask her, but she just stormed past him without answering."

"So, Ramona is still there? At Caltech?"

"Yeah. That's a good thing, right? See, nothing to be worry about."

"But you are concerned! So am I!" Amy asked sharply.

"Oh, sweetie." Penny bit her lip. "This may be my fault. I need to tell you about the conversation I had with Sheldon last night . . ."

* * *

A long, hot bath and her nightgown should have done the trick. The cat videos on the Internet should have sealed the deal. But all the cute, furry kittens in the world weren't helping.

Sheldon was missing.

He wasn't answering his phone. He wasn't replying to texts. His phone tracking was apparently disabled. Amy desperately needed to talk to him, to discuss this Ramona situation with him, but now he was gone. She kept recapitulating what she knew in her mind, but never found anything resembling a logical theory to connect the dots.

1\. Ramona seemed romantically interested in Sheldon, despite her knowledge of Amy's role as his girlfriend.  
2\. Penny was certain Sheldon was oblivious to those feelings, and Penny reassured Amy repeatedly that Sheldon hadn't done anything wrong. (There was a very small comfort there, but it was a postage stamp when she needed a blanket.)  
3\. Penny warned Sheldon about said romantic interest last night.  
4\. Sheldon was distant and distracted at this morning's phone call.  
5\. Sheldon had not called her as scheduled during the noon hour his time.  
6\. According to Leonard, Sheldon had been missing since that time.  
7\. Ramona, thankfully, was not missing, although she wasn't talking, either. (Another postage stamp.)

If the cat videos weren't going to work, Amy thought she might as well try to get some email done. She hadn't been productive at work all day, and she needed to make up for that. She closed the Internet, opened her mail, read the first message, and began typing her reply.

Knock, knock, knock. "Amy!"

Her head popped up. Was that -

Knock, knock, knock. "Amy!"

She turned sharply toward the door. It was Sheldon! He wasn't lost after all! He was at her door!

Knock, knock, knock. "Amy!"

Scrambling, she put her laptop down and went to the door, unlocking and opening, relieved and excited to finally -

Oh!

He was there. On bended knee. He was there, holding the ring box up for her to see. His face, the face she loved so much, was firm and calm and determined. She knew her mouth was probably hanging open, but Amy wasn't able to comprehend how to close it.

"Will you marry me?"

Surprised at the sudden and unexpected gesture, she just stared. In reality, it was only a couple of seconds, but it felt like months. It wasn't how Amy imagined it happening, it wasn't the threads of which her romantic dreams were spun. She had a few questions that she felt needed answered; an air of uncertainly still hung over the entire day. But this was Sheldon, her Sheldon, and she knew how true and pure his love was. He had proven it to her time and time again. Yes, he had a tendency to take the big steps in their relationship when he was frustrated, but she knew it was because, deep inside, where he never let anyone but her see it, he was frightened. But this fear he shared with her was the ultimate sign of his love for her; he trusted her to be there and support him and calm him.

There was no where else Amy would rather be. Their intimacy was not just physical, it never had been, it was each of them peeling away even their dura matter for the other, allowing the other to see the tangled, pulsing, beautiful mess of their cerebri. True love was touching another's naked mind, knowing its flaws, and accepting it as it was.

So there was no doubt how she was going to respond. Her encephalon was, always had been, always would be, his.

**THE END**

* * *

_**Thank you so much for sticking with this story, even when I myself wanted to abandon it. Your kind reviews are what kept me going.** _

_**Before you ask: no, I will not be continuing this for Season Eleven. Partially because canon Shamy have now proven they are already where I had them in this story (in terms of having coitus just because they love each other and want to express that physically); but mostly because, despite your lovely words of encouragement, I know my own strengths and have confirmed that this fly-by-night, rushed, and unplanned writing process does not suit my personality or writing style.** _

_**I cannot give a large enough THANK YOU to my dear friend Melissa who, despite her own busy life, proofread each and every chapter, often twice, in order to help me rush it out to you. She often kept me together emotionally, too, when I was complaining about the time crunch, the lack of** _ **_cohesion & story arc, and the generally sub-par writing._ **


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